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The Blazed Trail, The Silent Places, Conjuror s House 
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THE SILENT PLACES 

BY 

STEWART EDWARD WHITE 



NEW YORK 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
MCMIX 


Copyright, 1904, by 
STEWART EDWARD WHITE 


Published, April, 1904 




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LlOPYRIGHT, 1903, 1904, BY THE OuTINQ PUBLISHING CoMPANT 


To My Mother 


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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


The woodsmen, with a simultaneous movement, 

raised their rifles frontispiece 

Pacing 

page 


The child uttered a sharp cry of fright ... 26 

** Pretty enough to kiss ! ” cried Dick .... 66 

Listen, Little Sister,” said he. "Now I go on 
a long journey ” 148 

Dick jumped forward and snatched aside the 

opening into the wigwam 228 

The hound sniffed deep, filling his nostrils with 

the feather snow 258 

'^Stop ! ” he commanded, his voice croaking harsh 

across the stillness 294 



THE SILENT PLACES 





CHAPTER ONE 


At about eight o’clock one evening of the early 
summer a group of men were seated on a grass- 
plot overlooking a broad river. The sun was just 
setting through the forest fringe directly behind 
them. 

Of this group some reclined in the short grass, 
others lay flat on the bank’s slope, while still oth- 
ers leaned against the carriages of two highly or- 
namented field-guns, whose embossed muzzles gaped 
silently at an eastern shore nearly two miles dis- 
tant. 

The men were busy with soft-voiced talk, punct- 
uating their remarks with low laughter of a sin- 
gularly infectious character. It was strange 
speech, richly embroidered with the musical names 
of places, with unfamiliar names of beasts, and with 
unintelligible names of things. Kenogami, Mam- 
atawan, Wenebogan, Kapuskasmg, the silver-fox, 
the sea-otter, the sable, the wolverine, the musk-ox, 
3 


4 THE SILENT PLACES 

parka, babiche, tump-line, giddes, — these and oth- 
ers sang like arrows cleaving the atmosphere of 
commoner words. In the distant woods the white- 
throats and olive thrushes called in a language 
hardly less intelligible. 

There scarcely needed the row of glistening birch- 
barks below the men, the warehouse with its pick- 
eted lane, the tall flag-staff, the block-house stock- 
ade, the half-bred women chatting over the low 
fences of the log-houses, the squaws wandering to 
and fro in picturesque silence, the Indian children 
playing noisily or standing in awe before the ve- 
randa of the white house, to inform the initiated 
that this little forest- and river-girt settlement was 
a post of the Honourable the Hudson’s Bay Com- 
pany. The time of sunset and the direction of the 
river’s flow would have indicated a high latitude. 
The mile-long meadow, with its Indian camp, the 
oval of forest, the immense breadth of the river 
identified the place as Conjuror’s House. Thus the 
blue water in the distance was James Bay, the river 
was the Moose; enjoying his Manila cheroot on the 
Factory veranda with the other officers of the Com- 
pany was Galen Albret, and these men lounging 


CHAPTER ONE 5 

on the river bank were the Company’s post-keep- 
ers and runners, the travellers of the Silent Places. 

They were of every age and dressed in a variety 
of styles. All wore ornamented moccasins, bead 
garters, and red sashes of worsted. As to the rest, 
each followed his taste. So in the group could be 
seen bare heads, fillet-bound heads, covered heads; 
shirt sleeves, woollen jerseys, and long, beautiful 
blanket coats. Two things, however, proved them 
akin. They all possessed a lean, wiry hardness of 
muscle and frame, a hawk-like glance of the eye, 
an almost emaciated spareness of flesh on the cheeks. 
They all smoked pipes of strong plug tobacco. 

Whether the bronze of their faces, thrown into 
relief by the evening glow, the frowning steadiness 
of their eyes, or more fancifully the background 
of the guns, the flag-staff and the stockade was 
most responsible, the militant impression persisted 
strongly. These were the veterans of an hundred 
battles. They were of the stuff forlorn hopes are 
fashioned from. A great enemy, a powerful en- 
emy, an enemy to be respected and feared had hard- 
ened them to the unyielding. The adversary could 
almost be measured, the bitterness of the struggle 


6 THE SILENT PLACES 

almost be gauged from the scars of their spirits; 
the harshness of it, the cruelty of it, the wonderful 
immensity of it that should so fashion the souls and 
flesh of men. For to the bearing of these loungers 
clung that hint of greater things which is never 
lacking to those who have called the deeps of man’s 
nature to the conquering. 

The sun dipped to the horizon, and over the land- 
scape slipped the beautiful north-country haze of 
crimson. From the distant forest sounded a single 
mournful wolf-howl. At once the sledge-dogs an- 
swered in chorus. The twilight descended. The 
men gradually fell silent, smoking their pipes, 
savouring the sharp snow-tang, grateful to 
their toughened senses, that still lingered in the 
air. 

Suddenly out of the dimness loomed the tall form 
of an Indian, advancing with long, straight strides. 
In a moment he was among them responding com- 
posedly to their greetings. 

“Bo’ jou’, bo’ jou’, Me-en-gen,” said they. 

“Bo’ jou’, bo’ jou’,” said he. 

He touched two of the men lightly on the shoul- 
der. They arose, for they knew him as the bows- 


CHAPTER ONE 7 

man of the Factor’s canoe, and so understood that 
Galen Albret desired their presence. 

Me-en-gen led the way in silence, across the grass- 
plot, past the flag-staff, to the foot of the steps lead- 
ing to the Factory veranda. There the Indian left 
them. They mounted the steps. A voice halted 
them in the square of light cast through an inter- 
vening room from a lighted inner apartment. 

The veranda was wide and low; railed in; and, 
except for the square of light, cast in dimness. A 
dozen men sat in chairs, smoking. Across the shaft 
of light the smoke eddied strangely. A woman’s 
voice accompanied softly the tinkle of a piano in- 
side. The sounds, like the lamplight, were softened 
by the distance of the intervening room. 

Of the men on the veranda Galen Albret’s iden- 
tity alone was evident. Grim, four-square, inert, 
his very way of sitting his chair, as though it were 
a seat of judgment and he the interpreter of some 
fierce blood-law, betrayed him. From under the 
bushy white tufts of his eyebrows the woodsmen 
felt the search of his inspection. Unconsciously 
they squared their shoulders. 

The older had some fifty-five or sixty years, 


8 THE SILENT PLACES 

though his frame was still straight and athletic. A 
narrow-brimmed slouch hat shadowed quiet, gray 
eyes, a hawk nose, a long sweeping white mus- 
tache. His hands were tanned to a hard mahogany- 
brown carved into veins, cords, and gnarled joints. 
He had kindly humour in the wrinkles of his eyes, 
the slowly developed imagination of the forest- 
dweller in the deliberation of their gaze, and an 
evident hard and wiry endurance. His dress, from 
the rough pea-jacket to the unomamented mocca- 
sins, was severely plain. 

His companion was hardly more than a bo^ in 
years, though more than a man in physical develop- 
ment. In every respect he seemed to be especially 
adapted to the rigours of northern life. The broad 
arch of his chest, the plump smoothness of his mus- 
cles, above all, the full roundness of his throat in- 
dicated that warmth-giving blood, and plenty of it, 
would be pumped generously to every part of his 
body. His face from any point of view but one re- 
vealed a handsome, jaunty boy, whose beard was 
still a shade. But when he looked at one directly, 
the immaturity fell away. This might have been 
because of a certain confidence of experience beyond 


CHAPTER ONE 9 

what most boys of twenty can know, or it might 
have been the result merely of a physical peculiar- 
ity. For his eyes were so extraordinarily close to- 
gether that they seemed by their very proximity to 
pinch the bridge of his nose, and in addition, they 
possessed a queer slant or cast which twinkled per- 
petually now in one, now in the other. It invested 
him at once with an air singularly remote and sin- 
gularly determined. But at once when he looked 
away the old boyishness returned, enhanced further 
by a certain youthful barbarity in the details of 
his dress — a slanted heron’s feather in his hat, a 
beaded knife-sheath, an excess of oimamentation on 
his garters and moccasins, and the like. 

In a moment one of the men on the veranda be- 
gan to talk. It was not Galen Albret, though Ga- 
len Albret had summoned them, but MacDonald, 
his Chief Trader and his right-hand man. Galen 
Albret himself made no sign, but sat, his head sunk 
forward, watching the men’s faces from his cavern- 
ous eyes. 

“You have been called for especial duty,” began 
MacDonald, shortly. “It is volunteer duty, and 
you need not go unless you want to. We have 


10 THE SILENT PLACES 

called you because you have the reputation of never 
having failed. That is not much for you, Herron, 
because you are young. Still we believe in you. 
But you, Bolton, are an old hand on the Trail, and 
it means a good deal.” 

Galen Albret stirred. MacDonald shot a glance 
in his direction and hastened on. 

“I am going to tell you what we want. If you 
don’t care to tackle the job, you must know nothing 
about it. That is distinctly understood.^” 

He hitched forward nearer the light, scanning 
the men carefully. They nodded. 

“Sure!” added Herron. 

“That’s all right. Do you men remember Jin- 
goss, the Ojibway, who outfitted here a year ago 
last summer 

“Him they calls th’ Weasel.?” inquired Sam Bol- 
ton. 

“That’s the one. Do you remember him well? 
how he looks?” 

“Yes,” nodded Sam and Dick Herron together. 

“We’ve got to have that Indian.” 

“Where is he?” asked Herron. Sam Bolton re- 
mained silent. 


CHAPTER ONE 


11 


“That is for you to find out.” MacDonald then 
went on to explain himself, hitching his chair still 
nearer, and lowering his voice. “A year ago last 
summer,” said he, “he got his ‘debt’ at the store of 
two hundred castors* which he was to pay off in 
pelts the following spring. He never came back. 
I don’t think he intends to. The example is bad. 
It has never happened to us before. Too many 
Indians get credit at this Post. If this man is al- 
lowed to go unpunished, we’ll be due for all sorts 
of trouble with our other debtors. Not only he, 
but all the rest of them, must be made to feel that 
an embezzler is going to be caught, every time. 
They all know he’s stolen that debt, and they’re 
waiting to see what we’re going to do about it. I 
tell you this so you’ll know that it’s important.” 

“You want us to catch him.?” said Bolton, more 
as a comment than an inquiry. 

“Catch him, and catch him alive !” corrected Mac- 
Donald. “There must be no shooting. We’ve got 
to punish him in a way that will make him an ex- 
ample. We’ve got to allow our Indians ‘debt’ in 
order to keep them. If we run too great a risk of 


♦ One hundred dollars. 


12 THE SILENT PLACES 

loss, we cannot do it. That is a grave problem. 
In case of success you shall have double pay for the 
time you are gone, and be raised two ranks in the 
service. Will you do it?” 

Sam Bolton passed his emaciated, gnarled hand 
gropingly across his mouth, his usual precursor of 
speech. But Galen Albret abruptly interposed, 
speaking directly, with authority, as was his habit. 

“Hold on,” said he, “I want no doubt. If you 
accept this, you must not fail. Either you must 
come back with that Indian, or you need not come 
back at all. I won’t accept any excuses for failure. 
I won’t accept any failure. It does not matter if it 
takes ten years. I want that man.*' 

Abruptly he fell silent. After a moment Mac- 
Donald resumed his speech. 

“Think well. Let me know in the morning.” 

Bolton again passed his hand gropingly before 
his mouth. 

“No need to wait for me,” said he ; “I’ll do it.” 

Dick Herron suddeiSf^ laughed aloud, startling 
to flight the gravities of the moment. 

“If Sam here’s got her figured out, I’ve no need 
to worry,” he asserted. “I’m with you.” 


CHAPTER ONE IS 

“Very well,” agreed MacDonald. “Remember, 
this must be kept quiet. Come to me for what you 
need.” 

“I will say good-by to you now,” said Galen 
Albret. “I do not wish to be seen talking to you 
to-morrow.” 

The woodsmen stepped forward, and solemnly 
shook Galen Albret’s hand. He did not arise to 
greet these men he was sending out into the Silent 
Places, for he was the Factor, and not to many is it 
given to rule a country so rich and extended. They 
nodded in turn to the taciturn smokers, then glided 
away into the darkness on silent, moccasined feet. 

The night had fallen. Here and there through 
the gloom shone a lamp. Across the north was a 
dim glow of phosphorescence, precursor of the au- 
rora, from which occasionally trembled for an in- 
stant a single shaft of light. The group by the 
bronze field-cannon were humming softly the sweet 
and tender cadences of La Violette dandine. 

Instinctively the two woodsmen paused on the 
hither side of rejoining their companions. Bol- 
ton’s eyes were already clouded with the trouble of 
his speculation. Dick Herron glanced at his com- 


14 


THE SILENT PLACES 


rade quizzically, the strange cast flickering in the 
wind of his thought. 

“Oh, Sam !” said he. 

“What.?” asked the older man, rousing. 

“Strikes me that by the time we get through 
drawin’ that double pay on this job, we’ll be rich 
men — and old!” 


CHAPTER TWO 


The men stood looking vaguely upward at the 
stars. 

Dick Herron whipped the grasses with a switch 
he had broken in passing a willow-bush. His mind 
was little active. Chiefly he regretted the good 
time he had promised himself here at the Post after 
the labour of an early spring march from distant 
Winnipeg. He appreciated the difficulties of the 
undertaking, but idly, as something that hardly 
concerned him. The details, the planning, he dis- 
missed from his mind, confident that his comrade 
would rise to that. In time Sam Bolton would show 
him the point at which he was to bend his strength. 
Then he would stoop his shoulders, shut his eyes, and 
apply the magnificent brute force and pluck that 
was in him. So now he puckered his lips to the sibi- 
lance of a canoe-song, and waited. 

But the other, Sam Bolton, the veteran woods- 
man, stood in rapt contemplation, his wide-seeing, 
15 


16 THE SILENT PLACES 

gentle eyes of the old man staring with the magni- 
tude of his revery. 

Beyond the black velvet band lay the wilderness. 
There was the trackless country, large as the United 
States itself, with its great forests, its unmapped 
bodies of water, its plains, its barren grounds, its 
mountains, its water courses wider even than the 
Hudson River. Moose and bear, true lords of the 
forest, he might see any summer day. Herds of 
caribou, sometimes thousands strong, roamed its 
woodlands and barrens. Wolves, lurking ar bold 
as their prey was strong or weak, clung to the cari- 
bou bands in hope of a victim. Wolverines, — un- 
changed in form from another geological period — 
marten, mink, fisher, otter, ermine, muskrat, lynx, 
foxes, beaver carried on their varied affairs of mur- 
der or of peaceful industry. Woods Indians, scarce- 
ly less keen of sense or natural of life than the ani- 
mals, dwelt in their wigwams of bark or skins, 
trapped and fished, made their long migrations as 
the geese tum following their instinct. Sun, shad- 
ow, rain, cold, snow, hunger, plenty, labour, or the 
peaceful gliding of rivers, these had watched by the 
Long Trail in the years Sam Bolton had followed 


CHAPTER TWO 17 

it. He sensed them now dimly, instinctively, wait- 
ing by the Trail he was called upon to follow. 

Sam Bolton had lived many years in the forest, 
and many years alone. Therefore he had imag- 
ination. It might be of a limited quality, but 
through it he saw things in their essences. 

Now from the safe vantage ground of the camp, 
from the breathing space before the struggle, he 
looked out upon the wilderness, and in the wilder- 
ness he felt the old, inimical Presence as he had felt 
it for forty years. The scars of that long combat 
throbbed through his consciousness. The twisting 
of his strong hands, the loosening of the elasticity, 
the humbling of the spirit, the caution that had dis- 
placed the carelessness of youth, the keenness of eye, 
the patience, — all these were at once the marks of 
blows and the spoils of victory received from the 
Enemy. The wilderness, calm, ruthless, just, ter- 
rible, waited in the shadow of the forest, seeking no 
combat, avoiding none, conquering with a lofty air 
of predestination, yielding superbly as though the 
moment’s victory for which a man had strained the 
fibres of his soul were, after all, a little, unimpor- 
tant thing; never weary, never exultant, dispas- 


18 THE SILENT PLACES 

sionate, inevitable, mighty, whose emotions were si- 
lence, whose speech was silence, whose most terrible 
weapon was the great white silence that smothered 
men’s spirits. Sam Bolton clearly saw the North. 
He felt against him the steady pressure of her re- 
sistance. She might yield, but relentlessly re- 
gained her elasticity. Men’s efforts against her 
would tire; the mechanics of her power remained 
constant. What she lost in the moments of her op*- 
ponent’s might, she recovered in the hours of his 
weakness, so that at the last she won, poised in her 
original equilibrium above the bodies of her antago- 
nists. Dimly he felt these things, personifying the 
wilderness in his imagination of the old man, ar- 
ranging half-consciously his weapons of craft in 
their due order. 

Somewhere out beyond in those woods, at any one 
of the thirty-two points of the compass, a man was 
lurking. He might be five or five hundred miles 
away. He was an expert at taking care of him- 
self in the woods. Abruptly Sam Bolton began to 
formulate his thoughts aloud. 

“We got to keep him or anybody else from 
knowin’ we’s after him, Dick,” said he. “Jest as 


CHAPTER TWO 


19 

soon as he knows that, it’s just too easy for him to 
keep out of our way. Lucky Jingoss is an Ojib- 
way, and his people are way oflP south. We can 
fool this crowd here easy enough; we’ll tell ’em 
we’re looking for new locations for winter posts. 
But she’s an awful big country.” 

“Which way ’ll we go first?” asked Dick, with- 
out, however, much interest in the reply. What- 
ever Sam decided was sure to be all right. 

“It’s this way,” replied the latter. “He’s got to 
trade somewheres. He can’t come into any of the 
Posts here at the Bay. What’s the nearest? Why, 
Missinaibie, down in Lake Superior country. Prob- 
ably he’s down in that country somewheres. We’ll 
start south.” 

“That’s Ojibway country,” hazarded Dick at 
random. 

“It’s Ojibway country, but Jingoss is a Georgian 
Bay Ojibway. Down near Missinaibie every In- 
jun has his own hunting district, and they’re differ- 
ent from our Crees, — they stick pretty close to 
their district. Any strangers trying to hunt and 
trap there are going to get shot, sure pop. That 
makes me think that if Jingoss has gone south, and 


20 THE SILENT PLACES 

if he’s trading now at Missinaibie, and if he ain’t 
chummed up with some of them Ojibways to get 
permission to trap in their allotments, and if he 
ain’t pushed right on home to his own people or out 
west to Winnipeg country, then most likely we’ll 
find him somewheres about the region of th’ Kabin- 
akagam.” 

“So we’ll go up th’ Missinaibie River first,” sur- 
mised Dick. 

“That’s how we’ll make a start,” assented Bol- 
ton. 

As though this decision had terminated an inter- 
view, they turned with one accord toward the dim 
group of their companions. As they approached, 
they were acclaimed. 

“Here he is,” “Dick, come here,” “Dick, sing us 
the song. Chante done ‘Oncle Naid,’ Deeck.” 

And Dick, leaning carelessly against the breech 
of the field-guns, in a rich, husky baritone crooned 
to the far north the soft syllables of the far south. 

Oh, there was an old darkey, and his name was Uncle 
Ned, 

And he lived long ago, long ago U* 


CHAPTER THREE 


In the selection of paddles early next morning 
Sam insisted that the Indian rule be observed, meas- 
uring carefully that the length of each implement 
should just equal the height of its wielder. He 
chose the narrow maple blade, that it might not 
split when thrust against the bottom to check speed 
in a rapid. Further the blades were stained a brill- 
iant orange. 

Dick Herron had already picked one of a dozen 
birch-bark canoes laid away under the bridge over 
the dry coulee. He knew a good canoe as you would 
know a good horse. Fourteen feet it measured, of 
the heavy winter-cut of bark, and with a bottom all 
of one piece, without cracks or large knots. 

The canoe and the paddles they laid at the 
water’s edge. Then they went together to the great 
warehouse, behind the grill of whose upper room 
MacDonald was writing. Ordinarily the trappers 
were not allowed inside the grill, but Dick and Sam 
21 


22 THE SILENT PLACES 

were told to help themselves freely. The stocking 
Dick left to his older companion, assuring himself 
merely of an hundred rounds of ammunition for 
his new model Winchester rifle, the 44-40 repeater, 
then just entering the outskirts of its popularity. 

In the obscurity of the wide, low room the old 
woodsman moved to and fro, ducking his head to 
avoid things hanging, peering into corners, asking 
an occasional question of MacDonald, who followed 
him silently about. Two small steel traps, a nar- 
row, small-meshed fish-net, a fish-line and hooks, 
powder, ball, and caps for the old man’s muzzle- 
loader, a sack of salt were first laid aside. This 
represented subsistence. Then matches, a flint-and- 
steel machine, two four-point blankets. These 
meant warmth. Then ten pounds of plug tobacco 
and as many of tea. These were necessary luxuries. 
And finally a small sack of flour and a side of bacon. 
These were merely a temporary provision; when 
they should be exhausted, the men would rely wholly 
on the forest. 

Sam Bolton hovered over the pile, after it was 
completed, his eyes half shut, naming over its items 
again and again, assuring himself that nothing 


CHAPTER THREE 23 

lacked. At his side MacDonald made sugges- 
tions. 

“Got a copper pail, Sam? a frying-pan? cups? 
How about the axe? Better have an extra knife 
between you. Need any clothes? Compass all 
right ?” 

To each of these questions Sam nodded an assent. 
So MacDonald, having named everything — with 
the exception of the canvas square to be used as a 
tarpaulin or a tent, and soap and towel — fell silent, 
convinced that he could do nothing more. 

But Dick, who had been drumming his fingers 
idly against the window, turned with a suggestion 
of his own. 

“How’re we fixed for shoe pacs? I haven’t got 
any.” 

At once MacDonald looked blank. 

“By George, boys, I ain’t got but four or five 
pairs of moccasins in the place ! There’s plenty of 
oil tan ; I can fix you all right there. But smoke 
tans ! That Abitibi gang mighty near cleaned me 
out. You’ll have to try the Indians.” 

Accordingly Bolton and Herron took their way 
in the dusty little foot- trodden path — there were 


24 THE SILENT PLACES 

no horses in that frontier — between the Factor’s 
residence and the Clerk’s house, down the meander- 
ing trail through the high grasses of the meadow 
to where the Indian lodges lifted their pointed tops 
against the sky. 

The wigwams were scattered apparently at ran- 
dom. Before each a fire burned. Women and girls 
busied themselves with a variety of camp-work. 
A tame crow hopped and fluttered here and there 
j ust out of reach of the pointed-nosed, shaggy wolf- 
dogs. 

The latter rushed madly forward at the ap- 
proaching strangers, yelping in a curious, long- 
drawn bay, more suggestive of their wolf ancestors 
than of the domestic animal. Dick and Sam laid 
about them vigorously with short staffs they had 
brought for the purpose. Immediately the dogs, 
recognising their dominance, slunk back. Three 
men sauntered forward, grinning broadly in amia- 
ble greeting. Two or three women, more bashful 
than the rest, scuttled into the depths of wigwams 
out of sight. A multitude of children concealed 
themselves craftily, like a covey of quail, and 
focussed their bright, bead-like eyes on the new- 


CHAPTER THREE 25 

comers. The rest of the camp went its way 
unmoved. 

“Bo’ jou’, ho’ jou’,” greeted Sam Bolton. 

“Bo’ jou’, bo’ jou’,” replied the three. 

These Indians were of the far upper country. 
They spoke no English nor French, and adhered 
still to their own tribal customs and religious ob- 
servances. They had lingered several days beyond 
their time for the purpose of conjuring. In fact 
at this very moment the big medicine lodge raised 
itself in the centre of the encampment like a minia- 
ture circus tent. Sam Bolton addressed the two in 
their own language. 

“We wish to buy many moccasins of your old 
women,” said Sam. 

Immediately one of the Indians glided away. 
From time to time during the next few minutes he 
was intermittently visible as he passed from the 
dark interior of one wigwam, across the sunlight, 
and into the dark interior of another. 

The older of the two still in company of the white 
men began to ask questions. 

“The Little Father is about to make a long jour- 
ney?” 


26 THE SILENT PLACES 

‘‘Does one buy so many moccasins for a short?” 

“He goes to hunt the fur?” 

“Perhaps.” 

“In what direction does he set the bow of his 
canoe ?’ 

Suddenly Dick Herron, who had, as usual, been 
paying attention to almost anything rather than 
the matter in hand, darted suddenly toward a clump 
of grass. In a moment he straightened his back to 
hold at arm’s length a struggling little boy. At the 
instant of his seizure the child uttered a sharp cry 
of fright, then closed his lips in the stoicism of his 
race. 

That one cry was enough, however. Rescue 
darted from the nearest wigwam. A flying figure 
covered the little distance in a dozen graceful leaps, 
snatched the child from the young man’s hands 
and stood, one foot advanced, breast heaving, a pal- 
pitating, wild thing, like a symbol of defiance. 

The girl belonged distinctly to the more attrac- 
tive type; it required but little imagination to en- 
dow her with real beauty. Her figure was straight 
and slim and well-proportioned, her eyes large, her 
face oval and quite devoid of the broad, high- 



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CHAPTER THREE 27 

cheeked stupidity so common in the northern ra^es. 
At the moment she flashed like a brand with quick- 
breathed anger and fear. 

Dick looked at her at first with amazement, then 
with mingled admiration and mischief. He uttered 
a ferocious growl and lowered his shoulders as 
though about to charge. Immediately the defiance 
broke. The girl turned and fled, plunging like a 
rabbit into the first shelter that oflTered, pursued by 
shrieks of delight from the old squaws, a pleased 
roar from Dick, and the laughter of the Indian men 
themselves. 

“May-may-gwan,”* said the oldest Indian, nam- 
ing her, “foster sister to the boy you had 
caught.” 

“She is Ojibway, then,” exclaimed Dick, catch^ 
ing at the Ojibway word. 

“Ae,” admitted the Cree, indifi:erently. Such 
inclusions of another tribe, either by adoption or 
marriage, are not uncommon. 

At this moment the third Indian approached. 

“No moccasins,” he reported. “Plenty buck- 
skin.” 


♦ The Butterfly. 


28 THE SILENT PLACES 

Sam Bolton looked troubled. This meant a de- 
lay. However, it could not be avoided. 

“Let the old women make some,” he decided. 

The Cree old-man shook his head. 

“That cannot be. There is not time. We turn 
our canoes to the Missinaibie by next sun.” 

Sam pondered again, turning over in his mind 
this fresh complication. But Dick, kicking the 
earth clods in impatience, broke in. 

“Well, we’re going by the Missinaibie, too. Let 
the women make the moccasins. We will accom- 
pany you.” 

“That might be,” replied the Indian. 

“It is well,” said Bolton. 

An old woman was summoned. She measured 
her customers’ feet with a buckskin thong. Then 
they departed without further ceremony. An Ind 
ian rarely says farewell. When his business is fin- 
ished he goes. 

“Dick,” said Sam, “you ought not to have broke 
in there.” 

“What do you mean.?^” asked the other, puz- 
zled. 

“Suggesting our travelling with them.” 


CHAPTER THREE 29 

‘‘Why cried Dick in astonishment. “Ain’t you 
never travelled with Injuns before.?” 

“That ain’t th’ question. Did you notice that 
third Injun.? the one who didn’t do any talking.?” 

“Sure! What of him.?” 

“Well, he’s an Ojibway. Th’ rest are Wood 
Crees. And I miss my guess if he ain’t a bad cus- 
tomer. He watched us mighty close, and his eyes 
are bad. He’s sharp. He’s one of that wondering 
kind. He’s wondering now who we are, and where 
we’re going, and why we’re hitting so long a trail. 
And what’s more, he belongs to this Jingoss’s peo- 
ple in a roundabout sort of way. He’s worse than 
fifty Crees. Maybe he knows all about Jingoss, and 
if he does, he’ll get suspicious the minute we angle 
down into that country.” 

“Let’s let ’em slide, then,” suggested Dick, im- 
patiently. “Let’s buy some buckskin and make our 
own moccasins.” 

“Too late now,” negatived Sam. “To back out 
would be bad.” 

“Oh, well, you’re just borrowing trouble any- 
way,” laughed Dick. 

“Maybe, maybe,” acknowledged the other ^ “but 


30 THE SILENT PLACES 

borrowing trouble, and then figuring out how 
you’re going to meet it if it comes to you in good 
earnest, is mighty good woodcraft.” 

“Sam,” burst out Dick, whose attention had been 
caught by a word in his companion’s first speech, 
and whose mind had been running on it throughout 
the ensuing discussion, “did you notice that girl.^ 
She’s a tearing little beauty !” 


CHAPTER FOUR 


By now it was nearly noon. The travellers car- 
ried the packs they had made up down to the 
water-side where the canoe lay. Although the Ind- 
ians would not get under way until the following 
morning, it had been decided to push on at once, 
thus avoiding the confusion of a crowded start. 

In the course of the morning’s business the news 
of their expedition had noised abroad. Especially 
were they commiserated by the other runners and 
post-keepers. During all the winter these men had 
lived under the frown of the North, conducting 
their affairs confidently yet with caution, sure of 
themselves, yet never sure of the great power in 
w^hose tolerance they existed, in spite of whom they 
accomplished. Now was the appointed time of rest. 
In the relaxation of the thought they found pity 
for those ordered out of season into the Silent 
Places. 

So at the river’s bank Sam Bolton and Dick Her- 
31 


32 THE SILENT PLACES 

ron, ready for departure, found a group gathered. 
It was supposed that these men were to act as 
scouts, to reconnoitre shrewdly in the Enemy’s 
country, to spy out the land, so that in the autumn 
the Company might throw into the wilderness new 
posts, to be inhabited during the colder months. 

“Look heem Bla’k Bevair Lak,” advised Louis 
Placide; “I t’ink dose O jibway mak’ heem lots mar- 
ten, mink la has.” 

“Lads,” said Kern, the trader at Old Brunswick 
House, “if you’re going up th’ Missinaibie just 
cast an eye on my cache at Gull Lake, and see that 
the carcajaus have let her be.” 

Young Herbert was curious. “Where are you 
headed, boys.?” he inquired. 

But Ki-wa-nee, the trusty, the trader at Flying 
Post, the only Indian in the Company’s service hold- 
ing rank as a commissioned officer, grunted in con- 
tempt at the question, while Achard, of New Bruns- 
wick House, motioned warningly toward the groups 
of Indian trappers in the background. “Hush, 
boy,” said he to Herbert, “news travels, and in the 
south are the Free Traders to snatch at a new coun- 
try.” 


CHAPTER FOUR 33 

By now the voyageurs had turned their canoe 
over, slid it into the water, and piled the duffle 
amidships. 

But before they had time to step aboard, came 
Virginia Albret, then seventeen years old and as 
slender and graceful as a fawn. The daughter of 
the Factor, she had acquired a habit of command 
that became her well. While she enunciated her 
few and simple words of well-wishing, she looked 
straight out at them from deep black eyes. The 
two woodsmen, awed into a vast respect, fumbled 
their caps in their hands and noted, in the uncon- 
scious manner of the forest frequenter, the fresh 
dusk rose of her skin, the sharply defined red of her 
lips, the soft wheat colour of her hair. It was a 
gracious memory to carry into the Silent Places, 
and was in itself well worth the bestowal. However, 
Virginia, as was her habit, gave presents. On each 
she bestowed a long silk handkerchief. Sam Bol- 
ton, with a muttered word of thanks, stuffed his 
awkwardly into his shirt bosom. Dick, on the other 
hand, with a gesture half of gallantry, half of bra- 
vado, stripped his own handkerchief from his neck 
and cast it far into the current, knotting the girPs 


S4 THE SILENT PLACES 

gift in its place. Virginia smiled. A strong push 
sent the canoe into the current. They began to 
paddle up-stream. 

For perhaps a mile their course threaded in and 
out the channel of a number of islands, then shot 
them into the broad reach of the Moose itself. 
There they set themselves to straight-forward pad- 
dling, hugging closely the shore that they might 
escape as much as possible the full strength of the 
current. In this manner they made rapid progress, 
for, of course, they paddled in the Indian fashion 
— without bending either elbow, and with a strong 
thrust forward of the shoulders at the end of the 
stroke — and they understood well how to take ad- 
vantage of each little back eddy. 

After an hour and a half they came to the first 
unimportant rapids, where they were forced to drop 
their paddles and to use the long spruce-poles they 
had cut and peeled that morning. Dick had the 
bow. It was beautiful to see him standing boldly 
upright, his feet apart, leaning back against the 
pressure, making head against the hurrying water. 
In a moment the canoe reached the point of hardest 
suction, where the river broke over the descent. 


CHAPTER FOUR 


35 


Then the young man, taking a deep breath, put 
forth the strength that was in him. Sam Bolton, 
poised in the stern, holding the canoe while his com- 
panion took a fresh hold, noted with approval the 
boy’s physical power, the certainty of his skill at 
the difficult river work, the accuracy of his calcula- 
tions. Whatever his heedlessness, Dick Herron 
knew his trade. It was, indeed, a powerful instru- 
ment that Galen Albret in his wisdom had placed in 
Sam Bolton’s hands. 

The canoe, tom from the rapid’s grasp, shot into 
the smooth water above. Calmly Sam and Dick 
shook the water from their poles and laid them 
across the thwarts. The swish click! swish click! 
of the paddles resumed. 

Now the river began to hurry in the ten-mile de- 
scent below the Abitibi. Although the smooth rush 
of water was unbroken by the swirls of rapids, nev- 
ertheless the current proved too strong for pad- 
dling. The voyagers were forced again to the 
canoe poles, and so toiled in graceful but strenuous 
labour the remaining hours of their day’s journey. 
When finally they drew ashore for the night, they 
had but just passed the mouth of French River. 


36 THE SILENT PLACES 

To men as skilled as they, the making of camp 
was a brief affair. Dick, with his axe, cleared the 
space of underbrush, and sought dry wood for fuel. 
The older man in the meantime hunted about until 
he found a dead white-birch sapling. This he eas- 
ily thrust to the ground with a strong push of his 
hand. The jar burst here and there the hard en- 
velope of the birch bark to expose a quantity of 
half-powdery, decayed wood, dry as tinder and al- 
most as inflammable as gunpowder. Into a hand- 
ful of this Sam threw the sparks from his flint and 
steel. The bark itself fed admirably the flrst flame. 
By the time Dick returned, the fire was ready for 
his fuel. 

They cooked tea in the copper pail, and roasted 
bacon on the ends of switches. This, with bread 
from the Post, constituted their meal. After sup- 
per they smoked, banked the fire with green wood, 
and rolled themselves in their blankets to sleep. It 
was summer, so they did not trouble to pitch their 
shelter. 

The night died into silence. Slowly the fire 
worked from within through the chinks of the green 
logs. Forest creatures paused to stare at it with 


CHAPTER FOUR S7 

steady eyes, from which flashed back a blaze as in- 
tense as the fire’s own. An owl took his station near 
and began to call. Overhead the brilliant aurora 
of the Far North palpitated in a silence that seemed 
uncanny when coupled with such intensity of 
movement. Shadows stole here and there like aco- 
lytes. Breezes rose and died like the passing of a 
throng. The woods were peopled with uncanny in- 
fluences, intangible, unreal, yet potent with the 
symbolism of the unknown Presence watching 
these men. The North, calm, patient, biding her 
time, serene in the assurance of might, drew close 
to the camp in the wilderness. 

By and by a little pack of wolves came and 
squatted on their haunches just in the shadow. 
They were well fed and harmless, but they sat there 
blinking lazily at the flames, their tongues lolling, 
exactly like so many shaggy and good-humoured 
dogs. About two o’clock Dick rolled out of his 
blanket and replenished the fire. He did it somno- 
lently, his eyes vacant, his expression that of a child. 
Then he took a half-comprehending glance at the 
heaven’s promise of fair weather, and sank again 
into the warmth of his blanket. The wolves had not 
stirred. 


CHAPTER FIVE 


Now the small sack of flour and the side of bacon 
and the loose provisions brought from the Post 
could last but a little time, and the journey was like 
to be long. The travellers were to be forced from 
now on, just as are the wolves, the eagles, the 
hawks, the carcajous, and other predatory creatures 
of the woods, to give their first thoughts to the 
day’s sustenance. All other considerations gave 
way to this. This was the first, the daily tribute to 
be wrested from the stubborn grasp of the North. 
Winning that, anything was possible ; failing that, 
nothing could follow but defeat. Therefore, val- 
uable exceedingly were the two little steel traps and 
the twelve-foot length of gill-net, the sharp, thin 
knives in the beaded sheaths, and especially precious, 
precious above all things else, the three hundred 
rounds of ammunition for the rifles. They must be 
guarded and cared for and saved. 

38 


CHAPTER FIVE 39 

Therefore an incident of the early afternoon was 
more than welcome. 

All the morning they had toiled against the cur- 
rent, sometimes poling, sometimes ‘‘tracking” by 
means of a sixty-foot cod-line. Dick looped this 
across his chest and pulled like a horse on the tow- 
path, while Sam Bolton sat in the stem with the 
steering-paddle. The banks were sometimes pre- 
cipitous, sometimes stony, sometimes grown to the 
water’s edge with thick vegetation. Dick had often 
to wade, often to climb and scramble, sometimes 
even to leap from one foothold to another. Only 
rarely did he enjoy level footing and the oppor- 
tunity for a straight pull. Suddenly in a shallow 
pool, near the river’s edge, and bordered with 
waist-high grass, he came upon a flock of black 
ducks. They were full grown, but as yet unable to 
fly. Dick dropped his tow-line and ran forward 
with a shout. At once the ducks became confused, 
scattering in all directions, squawking madly, 
spattering the water. The mother flew. The 
brood, instead of making for the open river, where 
it would have been safe, scuttled into the tall 
grasses. 


40 THE SILENT PLACES 

Here was the chance for fresh meat without the 
expenditure of a shot. Sam Bolton promptly dis- 
embarked. To us it would have seemed a simple 
matter. But the black duck is an expert at con- 
cealment, even in the open. He can do wonders at 
it when assisted by the shadows of long grass. And 
when too closely approached he can glide away to 
right and left like a snake, leaving no rustle to be- 
tray his passage. Five minutes passed before the 
first was discovered. Then it was only because 
Dick’s keen eye had detected a faintly stirring 
grass-blade ten feet away, and because Dick’s quick 
muscles had brought him like a tiger to the spot. 
He held up his victim by the neck. 

“Good enough,” growled Sam. 

And although they had seen nine ducks go into 
the grass plot, which was not more than fifty feet 
across, they succeeded in finding but three. How- 
ever, they were satisfied. 

In spite of the deliberation of their journeying, 
the Indians did not overtake them until nearly 
dark. It was just above the junction of the Abitibi. 
The river was without current, the atmosphere with- 
out the suspicion of a breeze. Down to the very 


CHAPTER FIVE 41 

water’s edge grew the forest, so velvet-dark that one 
could not have guessed where the shadow left off 
and the reflection began. Not a ripple disturbed 
the peace of the water, nor a harsh sound the twi- 
light peace of the air. Sam and Dick had paddled 
for some time close to one bank, and now had paused 
to enjoy their pipes and the cool of the evening. 
Suddenly against the reflected sky at the lower 
bend a canoe loomed into sight, and crept smoothly 
and noiselessly under the forest shadow of the op- 
posite bank. Another followed, then another, and 
another and still another in regular interval. Not 
a sound could be heard. In the distance their occu- 
pants gave the illusion of cowled figures, — the Ind- 
ian women close wrapped in their shawls, dropping 
their heads modestly or turning them aside as their 
customs commanded them to do on encountering 
strangers. Against the evening glow of the re- 
flected sky for a single instant they stood out in 
the bright yellow of the new birch-bark, the glow 
of warm colour on the women’s dress. Then instan- 
taneously, in the darkness of the opposite bank, 
they faded wraith-like and tenuous. Like phan- 
toms of the past they glided by, a river’s width 


42 THE SILENT PLACES 

away; then vanished around the upper bend. A 

moment later the river was empty. 

“Th’ squaws goin’ ahead to start camp,” com- 
mented Sam Bolton, indifferently; “we’ll have th’ 
bucks along pretty quick.” 

They drove their paddles strongly, and drifted 
to the middle of the river. 

Soon became audible shouts, cries, and laughter, 
the click of canoe poles. The business of the day 
was over. Until nearly sundown the men’s canoes 
had led, silent, circumspect, seeking game at every 
bend of the river. Now the squaws had gone on to 
make camp. No more game was to be expected. 
The band relaxed, joking, skylarking, glad to be 
relieved for a little while of the strain of attention. 

In a moment the canoes appeared, a long, un- 
broken string, led by Haukemah. In the bow sat 
the chief’s son, a lad of nine, wielding his little pad- 
dle skilfully, already intelligent to twist the prow 
sharply away from submerged rocks, learning to 
be a canoe-man so that in the time to come he might 
go on the Long Trail. 

Each canoe contained, besides its two occupants, 
ft variety of household goods, and a dog or two 


CHAPTER FIVE 43 

©oiled and motionless, his sharp nose resting between 
his outstretched forepaws. The tame crow occu- 
pied an ingenious cage of twisted osiers. 

Haukemah greeted the two white men cordially, 
and stopped paddling to light his pipe. One by 
one the other canoes joined them. A faint haze of 
tobacco rose from the drifting group. 

“My brothers have made a long sun,” observed 
old Haukemah. “We, too, have hastened. Now 
we have met, and it is well. Down past the white 
rock it became the fortune of Two-fingers to slay 
a caribou that stood by the little water.* Also 
had we whitefish the evening before. Past the 
Island of the Three Trees were signs of moose.” 
He was telling them the news, as one who passed 
the time of day. 

“We have killed but neenee-sheeb, the duck,” re- 
plied Dick, holding up one of the victims by the 
neck, “nor have we seen the trail of game.” 

“Ah hah,” replied Haukemah, politely. 

He picked up his paddle. It was the signal to 
start. 

“Drop in astern,” said Dick to his companion in 
* A spring. 


44 


THE SILENT PLACES 


English, “it’s the light of the evening, and I’m 
going to troll for a pickerel.” 

One by one the canoes fell into line. Now, late 
in the day, the travel was most leisurely. A single 
strong stroke of the paddle was always succeeded 
by a pause of contemplation. Nevertheless the 
light craft skimmed on with almost extraordinary 
buoyancy, and in silent regularity the wooded 
points of the river succeeded one another. 

Sam busied himself with the trolling-spoon, but 
as soon as the last canoe was well beyond hearing 
he burst out : 

“Dick, did you notice the Chippewa?” 

“No. What.?” 

“He understands English.” 

“How do you know.?” 

“He was right behind us when you told me you 
were goin’ to try the fishing, and he moved out th’ 
way before we’d raised our paddles.” 

“Might have been an accident.” 

“Perhaps, but I don’t believe it. He looked too 
almighty innocent. Another thing, did you notice 
he was alone in his canoe ?” 

“What of it?” 


CHAPTER FIVE 


45 


“Shows he ain’t noways popular with th’ rest. 
Generally they pair off. There’s mostly something 
shady about these renegades.” 

“Well.?” 

“Oh, nothing. Only we got to be careful.” 


CHAPTER SIX 


Camp was made among the trees of an elevated 
bank above a small brook. 

Already the Indian women had pitched the shel- 
ters, spreading squares of canvas, strips of birch 
bark or tanned skins over roughly improvised lean- 
to poles. A half dozen tiny fires, too, they had 
built, over which some were at the moment en- 
gaged in hanging as many kettles. Several of the 
younger women were cleaning fish and threading 
them on switches. Others brought in the small 
twigs for fuel. Among them could be seen May- 
may-gwan, the young Ojibway girl, gliding here 
and there, eyes downcast, inexpressibly graceful in 
contrast with the Crees. 

At once on landing the men took up their share 
of the work. Like the birds of the air and the beasts 
of the wood their first thoughts turned to the assur- 
ance of food. Two young fellows stretched a gill- 
net across the mouth of the creek. Others scattered 
in search of favourable spots in which to set the 
46 


CHAPTER SIX 47 

niusk-rat traps, to hang snares for rabbits and 
grouse. 

Soon the camp took on the air of age, of long 
establishment, that is so suddenly to be won in the 
forest. The kettles began to bubble; the impaled 
fish to turn brown. A delicious odour of open-air 
cooking permeated the air. Men filled pipes and 
smoked in contemplation; children warmed them- 
selves as near the tiny fires as they dared. Out of 
the dense blackness of the forest from time to time 
staggered what at first looked to be an uncouth 
and misshapen monster, but which presently re- 
solved itself into an Indian leaning under a burden 
of spruce-boughs, so smoothly laid along the haft 
of a long forked stick that the bearer of the burden 
could sling it across his shoulder like a bale of hay. 
As he threw it to the ground, a delicate spice-like 
aroma disengaged itself to mingle with the smell of 
cooking. Just at the edge of camp sat the wolf- 
dogs, their yellow eyes gleaming, waiting in pa- 
tience for their tardy share. 

After the meal the women drew apart. Dick’s 
eyes roved in vain, seeking a glimpse of the Ojib- 
way girl. He was too familiar with Indian eti- 


48 THE SILENT PLACES 

quette to make an advance, and in fact his interest 

was but languidly aroused. 

The men sat about the larger fire smoking It 
was the hour of relaxation. In the blaze their 
handsome or strong-lined brown faces lighted good- 
humouredly. They talked and laughed in low 
tones, the long syllables of theii language lisping 
and hissing in strange analogy to the noises of the 
fire or the forest or the rapids or some other natural 
thing. Their speech was of the chances of the 
woods and the approaching visit to their Ojibway 
brothers in the south. For this they had brought 
their grand ceremonial robes of deerskin, now 
stowed securely in bags. The white men were silent. 
In a little while the pipes were finished. The camp 
was asleep. Through the ashes and the embers 
prowled the wolf-dogs, but half-fed, seeking 
scraps. Soon they took to the beach in search of 
cast-up fish. There they wandered all night long 
under the moon voicing their immemorial wrongs 
to the silenced forest. 

Almost at first streak of dawn the women were 
abroad. Shortly after, the men visited their traps 
and lifted the nets. In this land and season of 


CHAPTER SIX 


plenty the catch had been good. The snares had 
strangled three hares ; the steel traps had caught 
five musk-rats, which are very good eating in spite 
of their appearance ; the net had intercepted a num- 
ber of pickerel, suckers, and river whitefish. This, 
with the meat of the caribou, shot by Two-fingers 
the day before, and the supplies brought from the 
Post, made ample provision. 

Nevertheless, when the camp had been struck and 
the canoes loaded, the order of march was reversed. 
Now the men took the lead by a good margin, and 
the women and children followed. For in the 
wooded country game drinks early. 

Before setting out, however, old Haukemah 
blazed a fair clean place on a fir-tree, and with 
hard charcoal from the fire marked on it these 
characters : 



^ ^ y 
r i .V 4 

C C-O < L <L. ' 


50 


THE SILENT PLACES 


“Can you read Injun writin’?” asked Dick. “I 
can’t.” 

“Yes,” replied Sam, “learned her when I was 
snowed up one winter with Scar-Face down by the 
Burwash Lake country.” He squinted his eyes, 
reading the syllables slowly. 

“ ‘Abichi-ka-menot Moosanuk-ka-ja yank. Mis- 
sowa edookan owasi sek negi — ’ Why, it’s Ojibway, 
not Cree,” he exclaimed. “They’re just leaving a 
record. ‘Good journey from Moose Factory. Big 
game has been seen.’ Funny how plumb curious an 
Injun is. They ain’t one could come along here and 
see th’ signs of this camp and rest easy ’till he’d 
figgered out how many they were, and where they 
were going, and what they were doing, and all 
about it. These records are a kind-hearted try to 
save other Injuns that come along a whole lot of 
trouble. That’s why old Haukemah wrote it in 
Ojibway ’stead of Cree: this is by rights Ojibway 
country.” 

“We’d better pike out, if we don’t want to get 
back with th’ squaws,” suggested Dick. 

About two hours before noon, while the men’s 
squadron was paddling slowly along a flat bank 


CHAPTER SIX 51 

overgrown with grass and bushes, Dick and Sam 
perceived a sudden excitement in the leading canoes. 
Haukemah stopped, then cautiously backed until 
well behind the screen of the point. The other ca- 
noes followed his example. In a moment they were 
all headed down stream, creeping along noiselessly 
without lifting their paddles from the water. 

“They’ve seen some game beyant the point,” 
whispered Dick. “Wonder what it is.?” 

But instead of pausing when out of earshot for 
the purpose of uncasing the guns or landing a 
stalking party, the Indians crept gradually from 
the shore, caught the current, and shot away down 
stream in the direction from which they had come. 

“It’s a bear,” said Sam, quietly. “They’ve gone 
to get their war-paint on.” 

The men rested the bow of their canoe lightly 
against the shore, and waited. In a short time the 
Indian canoes reappeared. 

“Say, they’ve surely got th’ dry goods!” com- 
mented Dick, amused. 

In the short interval that had elapsed, the Ind- 
ians had intercepted their women, unpacked their 
baggage, and arrayed themselves in their finest 


52 THE SILENT PLACES 

dress of ceremony. Buckskin elaborately em- 
broidered with beads and silks in the flower pattern, 
ornaments of brass and silver, sacred skins of the 
beaver, broad dashes of ochre and vermilion on the 
naked skin, twisted streamers of coloured wool — all 
added to the barbaric gorgeousness of the old-time 
savage in his native state. Each bowsman carried 
a long brass-bound forty -five “trade-gun,” war- 
ranted to kill up to ten yards. 

“It’s surely a nifty outfit!” commented Sam, 
half admiringly. 

A half dozen of the younger men were landed. 
At once they disappeared in the underbrush. Al- 
though the two white men strained their keen senses 
they were unable to distinguish by sight or sound 
the progress of the party through the bushes. 

“I guess they’re hunters, all right,” conceded 
Dick. 

The other men waited like bronze statues. After 
a long interval a pine-warbler uttered its lisping 
note. Immediately the paddles dipped in the silent 
deer-stalker’s stroke, and the cavalcade crept for- 
ward around the point. 

Dick swept the shore with his eye, but saw noth- 


CHAPTER SIX 53 

ing. Then all heard plainly a half-smothered grunt 
of satisfaction, followed hy a deep drawn breath. 
Phantom-like, without apparently the slightest di- 
recting motion, the bows of the canoes swung like 
wind-vanes to point toward a little heap of drift- 
logs under the shadow of an elder bush. The bear 
was wallowing in the cool, wet sand, and evidently 
enjoying it. A moment later he stuck his head 
over the pile of driftwood, and indulged in a lei- 
surely survey of the river. 

His eye was introspective, vacant, his mouth was 
half open, and his tongue lolled out so comically 
that Dick almost laughed aloud. No one moved by 
so much as a hand’s breadth. The bear dropped 
back to his cooling sand with a sigh of voluptuous 
pleasure. The canoes drew a little nearer. 

Now old Haukemah rose to his height in tfl^bow 
of his canoe, and began to speak Rapidly m a low 
voice. Immediately the animal bobbed into sight 
again, his wicked little eyes snapping with intelli- 
gence. It took him some moments to determine 

o. 

what these motionless, bright-coloured objects 
might be. Then he turned toward the land, but 
stopped short as his awakened senses brought him 


54 THE SILENT PLACES 

the reek of the young men who had hemmed in his 
shoreward escape. He was not yet thoroughly 
alarmed, so stood there swaying uneasily back and 
forth, after the manner of bears, while Haukemah 
spoke swiftly in the soft Cree tongue. 

“Oh, makwa, our little brother,” he said, “we 
come to you not in anger, nor in disrespect. We 
come to do you a kindness. Here is hunger and 
cold and enemies. In the Afterland is only happi- 
ness. So if we shoot you, oh makwa, our little 
brother, be not angry with us.” 

He raised his trade-gun and pulled the trigger. 
A scattering volley broke from the other canoes 
and from the young men concealed in the bushes. 

Now a trade-gun is a gun meant to trade. It is 
a section of what looks to be gas-pipe, bound by 
brass bands to a long, clumsy, wooden stick that 
extends within an inch of the end of the barrel. It 
is supposed to shoot ball or shot. As a matter of 
fact the marksman’s success depends more on his 
luck than his skill. Were it not for the Woods-Ind- 
ian’s extraordinary powers of still-hunting so that 
he can generally approach very near to his game, 
his success would be small indeed. 


CHAPTER SIX 55 

With the shock of a dozen little bullets the bear 
went down, snarling and biting and scattering the 
sand, but was immediately afoot again. A black 
bear is not a particularly dangerous beast in ordi- 
nary circumstances — but occasionally be contrib- 
utes quite a surprise to the experience of those who 
encounter him. This bear was badly wounded and 
cruelly frightened. His keen sense of smell in- 
formed him that the bushes contained enemies 
— how many he did not know, but they were con- 
cealed, unknown, and therefore dreadful. In front 
of him was something definite. Before the aston- 
ished Indians could back water, he had dashed into 
the shallows, and planted his paws on the bow of old 
Haukemah’s canoe. 

A simultaneous cry of alarm burst from the other 
Indians. Some began frantically to recharge their 
muzzle-loading trade-guns; others dashed toward 
the spot as rapidly as paddle or moccasin could 
bring them. Haukemah himself roused valiantly to 
the defence, but was promptly upset and pounced 
upon by the enraged animal. A smother of spray 
enveloped the scene. Dick Herron rose suddenly 
to his feet and shot. The bear collapsed into the 


56 THE SILENT PLACES 

muddied water, his head doubled under, a thin 
stream of arterial blood stringing away down the 
current. ' Haukemah and his steersman rose drip- 
ping. A short pause of silence ensued. 

“Well, you are a wonder!” ejaculated Sam Bol- 
ton at last. “How in thunder did you do that.? I 
couldn’t make nothing out of that tangle — at least 
nothing clear enough to shoot at 1” 

“Luck,” replied Dick, briefly. “I took a snap 
shot, and happened to make it.” 

“You ran mighty big chances of winning old 
Haukemah,” objected Sam. 

“Sure! But I didn’t,” answered Dick, conclu- 
sively. 

The Indians gathered to examine in respectful 
admiration. Dick’s bullet had passed from ear to 
ear. To them it was wonderful shooting, as in- 
deed it would have been had it indicated anything 
but the most reckless luck. Haukemah was some- 
what disgusted at the wetting of his finery, but the 
bear is a sacred animal, and even ceremonial dress 
and an explanation of the motives that demanded 
his death might not be sufficient to appease his 
divinity. The women’s squadron appeared about 


CHAPTER SIX 57 

the bend, and added their cries of rej oicing to those 
of their husbands and brothers. 

The beautiful buckskin garments were hastily 
exchanged for ordinary apparel. By dint of much 
wading, tugging, and rolling the carcass was 
teased to the dry beach. There the body was se- 
curely anchored by the paws to small trees, and the 
work of skinning and butchering began. 

Not a shred was wasted. Whatever flesh would 
not be consumed within a few days they cut into 
very thin strips and hung across poles to dry. 
Scraps went to the dogs, who were for once well fed. 
Three of the older squaws went to work with bone 
scrapers to tan the hide. In this season, while the 
fur was not as long as it would be later, it was fine 
and new. The other squaws pitched camp. No 
right-minded Indian would dream of travelling 
further with such a feast in prospect. 

While these things were preparing, the older 
men cleaned and washed the bear’s skull very care- 
fully. Then they cut a tall pole, on the end of 
which they fastened the skull, and finished by plant- 
ing the whole affair securely near the running 
water. When the skull should have remained there 


58 THE SILENT PLACES 

for the space of twelve moons, the sacred spirit of 
the departed beast would be appeased. For that 
reason Haukemah would not here leave his custom- 
ary hieroglyphic record when he should break camp. 
If an enemy should happen along, he could do harm 
to Haukemah simply by overturning the trophy, 
whereas an unidentified skull might belong to a 
friend, and so would be let alone on the chance. 
For that reason, too, when they broke camp the 
following day, the expert trailers took pains to 
obliterate the more characteristic indications of 
their stay. 

Now abruptly the weather changed. The sky 
became overcast with low, gray clouds hurrying 
from the northwest. It grew cold. After a few 
hours of indecision it began to rain, dashing the 
chill water in savage gusts. Amidships in each ca- 
noe the household goods were protected carefully 
by means of the wigwam covers, but the people 
themselves sat patiently, exposed to the force of the 
storm. Water streamed from their hair, over their 
high cheeks, to drip upon their already sodden 
clothing. The buckskin of their moccasins sucked 
water like so many sponges. They stepped indif- 


CHAPTER SIX 59 

ferently in and out of the river, — for as to their 
legs, necessarily much exposed, they could get no 
wetter — and it was very cold. Whenever they 
landed the grass and bushes completed the soaking. 
By night each and every member of the band, in- 
cluding the two white men, were as wet as though 
they had plunged over-head in the stream. Only 
there was this difference: river-water could have 
been warmed gradually by the contact of woolen 
clothes with the body, but the chill of rain-water 
was constantly renewed. 

Nor was there much comfort in the prospect 
when, weary and cold, they finally drew their canoes 
ashore for the evening’s camp. The forest was 
dripping, the ground soggy, each separate twig 
and branch cold and slippery to the hand. The 
accumulated water of a day showered down at the 
slightest movement. A damp wind seemed to rise 
from the earth itself. 

Half measures or timid shrinkings would not do. 
Every one had to plunge boldly into the woods, had 
to seize and drag forth, at whatever cost of shower- 
bath the wilderness might levy, all the dead wood he 
could find. Then the value of the birch-bark envel- 


60 THE SILENT PLACES 

ope about the powdery touch-wood became evident. 
The fire, at first small and steamy, grew each instant. 
Soon a dozen little blazes sprang up, only to be ex- 
tinguished as soon as they had partially dried the 
site of wigwams. Hot tea was swallowed grate- 
fully, duffel hung before the flames. Nobody 
dried completely, but everybody steamed, and even 
in the pouring rain this little warmth was comfort 
by force of contrast. The sleeping blankets were 
damp, the clothes were damp, the ground was damp, 
the air was damp; but, after all, discomfort is a 
little thing and a temporary, and can be borne. In 
the retrospect it is nothing at all. Such is the Ind- 
ian’s philosophy, and that is why in a rain he gen- 
erally travels instead of lying in camp. 

The storm lasted four days. Then the wind 
shifted to the north, bringing clearing skies. 

Up to now the river had been swift in places, but 
always by dint of tracking or poling the canoes 
had been forced against the quick water. Early 
one forenoon, however, Haukemah lifted carefully 
the bow of his canoe and slid it up the bank. 


CHAPTER SEVEN 


The portage struck promptly to the right through 
a tall, leafy woods, swam neck-high in the foliage 
of- small growth, mounted a steep hill, and mean- 
dered over a bowlder-strewn, moss-grown plateau, 
to dip again, a quarter of a mile away, to the banks 
of the river. But you must not imagine one of 
your easy portages of Maine or lower Canada. 
This trail was faint and dim, — here an excoriation 
on the surface of a fallen and half-rotted tree, there 
a withered limb hanging, again a mere sense in the 
forest’s growth that others had passed that way. 
Only an expert could have followed it. 

The canoe loads were dumped out on the beach. 
One after another, even to the little children, the 
people shouldered their packs. The long sash was 
knotted into a loop, which was passed around the 
pack and the bearer’s forehead. Some of the 
stronger men carried thus upward of two hundred 
pounds. 


61 


62 THE SILENT PLACES 

Unlike a party of white men, the Indians put no 
system into their work. They rested when they 
pleased, chatted, shouted, squatted on their heels 
conversing. Yet somehow the task was accom- 
plished, and quickly. To one on an elevation dom- 
inating the scene it would have been most pict- 
uresque. Especially noticeable were those who 
for the moment stood idle, generally on heights, 
where their muscle-loose attitudes and fluttering 
draperies added a strangely decorative note to the 
landscape; while below plodded, bending forward 
under their enormous loads, an unending procession 
of patient toilers. In five minutes the portage was 
alive from one end to the other. 

To Dick and Sam Bolton the traverse was a sim- 
ple matter. Sam, by the aid of his voyager’s sash, 
easily carried the supplies and blankets; Dick fast- 
ened the two paddles across the thwarts to form a 
neck-yoke, and swung off with the canoe. Then 
they returned to the plateau until their savage 
friends should have finished the crossing. 

Ordinarily white men of this class are welcome 
enough to travel with the Indian tribes. Their 
presence is hardly considered extraordinary enough 


CHAPTER SEVEN 6S 

for comment. Sam Bolton, however, knew that in 
the present instance he and Dick aroused an unusual 
interest of some sort. 

He was not able to place it to his own satisfac- 
tion. It might be because of Bolton’s reputation 
as a woodsman ; it might be because of Dick Her- 
ron’s spectacular service to Haukemah in the in- 
stance of the bear; it might be that careful talk 
had not had its due effect in convincing the Indians 
that the journey looked merely to the establishment 
of new winter posts; Sam was not disinclined to 
attribute it to pernicious activity on the part of the 
O jibway. It might spring from any one of these. 
Nor could he quite decide its quality; — whether 
friendly or inimical. Merely persisted the fact 
that he and his companion were watched curi- 
ously by the men and fearfully by the women; 
that they brought a certain constraint to the camp 
fire. 

Finally an incident, though it did not decide 
these points, brought their ambiguity nearer to the 
surface. 

One evening old Haukemah received from the 
women the bear’s robe fully tanned. Its inner sur- 


64 THE SILENT PLACES 

tace had been whitened and then painted rudelj 
with a symbolical representation of the hunt. 
Haukemah spoke as follows, holding the robe in 
his hand ; 

“This is the robe of makwa, our little brother. 
His flesh we all ate of. But you who killed him 
should have his coat. Therefore my women have 
painted it because you saved their head man.” 

He laid the robe at Dick’s feet. Dick glanced 
toward his companion with the strange cast flicker- 
ing quizzically in his narrow eyes. “Fine thing to 
carry along on a trip like ours,” he said in Eng- 
lish. “/ don’t know what to do with it. They’ve 
worked on it mighty near a week. I wish to hell 
they’d keep their old robe.” However, he stopped 
and touched it in sign of acceptance. ‘T thank my 
brother,” he said in Cree. 

“You’ll have to bring it along,” Sam answered 
in English. “We’ll have to carry it while we’re 
with them, anyway.” 

The Indian men were squatted on their heels 
about the fire, waiting gravely and courteously for 
this conference, in an unknown tongue, to come to 
an end. The women, naturally interested in the dis- 


CHAPTER SEVEN 65 

posal of their handiwork, had drawn just within 
the circle of light. 

Suddenly Dick, inspired, darted to this group of 
women, whence he returned presently half drag- 
ging, half-coaxing a young girl. She came reluc- 
tantly, hanging back a little, dropping her head, 
or with an embarrassed giggle glancing shyly over 
her shoulder at her companions. When near the 
centre of the men’s group, Dick dropped her hand. 

Promptly she made as though to escape, but 
stopped at a word from Haukemah. It was May- 
may-gwan, the Ojibway girl. 

Obediently she paused. Her eyes were dancing 
with the excitement of the adventure, an almost 
roguish smile curved her mouth and dimpled her 
cheek, her lower lip was tightly clasped between her 
teeth as she stood contemplating her heavily beaded 
little moccasin, awaiting the explanation of this, to 
her, extraordinary performance. 

‘‘What is your name, little sister asked Dick 
in Cree. 

She dropped her head lower, but glanced from 
the comer of her eye at the questioner. 

“Answer!” commanded Haukemah. 


66 THE SILENT PLACES 

“May-may-gwan,” she replied in a low voice. 

“Oh, yes,” said Dick, in English. “You’re an 
Ojibway,” he went on in Cree. 

“Yes.” 

“That explains why you’re such a tearing little 
beauty,” muttered the young man, again in Eng- 
lish. 

“The old-men,” he resumed, in Cree, “have given 
me this robe. Because I hold it very dear I wish to 
give it to that people whom I hold dearest. That 
people is the Crees of Rupert’s House. And be- 
cause you are the fairest, I give you this robe so 
that there may be peace between your people and 
me.” 

Ill-expressed as this little speech was, from the 
flowery standpoint of Indian etiquette, nevertheless 
its subtlety gained applause. The Indians grunted 
deep ejaculations of pleasure. “Good boy!” mut- 
tered Sam Bolton, pleased. 

Dick lifted the robe and touched it to the girl’s 
hand. She gasped in surprise, then slowly raised 
her eyes to his. 

“Damn if you ain’t pretty enough to kiss 1” cried 
Dick. 







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CHAPTER SEVEN 67 

He stepped across the robe, which had fallen be- 
tween them, circled the girl’s upturned face with 
the flat of his hands, and kissed her full on the 
lips. 

The kiss of ceremony is not unknown to the 
northern Indians, and even the kiss of affection 
sometimes to be observed among the more demon- 
strative, but such a caress as Dick bestowed on May- 
may-gwan filled them with astonishment. The girl 
herself, though she cried out, and ran to hide 
among those of her own sex, was not displeased ; she 
rather liked it, and could not mis-read the admira- 
tion that had prompted it. Nor did the other Ind- 
ians really object. It was a strange thing to do, 
but perhaps it was a white man’s custom. The 
affair might have blown away like a puff of gun- 
powder. 

But at the moment of Dick’s salute, Sam Bolton 
cried out sharply behind him. The young woods- 
man instantly whirled to confront the Chippewa. 

“He reached for his knife,” explained Sam. 

The ejaculation had also called the attention of 
every member of the band to the tableau. There 
could be absolutely no doubt as to its meaning, — 


68 THE SILENT PLACES 

the evident anger of the red, his attitude, his hand 
on the haft of his knife. The Chippewa was fairly 
caught. 

He realised the fact, but his quick mind instantly 
turned the situation to his profit. Without at- 
tempting to alter the malice of his expression, he 
nevertheless dropped his hand from his knife-hilt, 
and straightened his figure to the grandiose atti- 
tude of the Indian orator. 

“This man speaks crooked words. I know the 
language of the saganash. He tells my brothers 
that he gives this robe to May-may-gwan because 
he holds it the dearest of his possessions, and be- 
cause his heart is good towards my brother’s peo- 
ple. But to the other saganash he said these words : 
‘It is a little thing, and I do not wish to carry it. 
What shall I do with it?’ ” 

He folded his arms theatrically. Dick Herron, 
his narrow eyes blazing, struck him full on the 
inouth a shoulder blow that sent him sprawling into 
the ashes by the fire. 

The Chippewa was immediately on his feet, his 
knife in his hand. Instinctively the younger Crees 
drew near to him. The old race antagonism flashed 


CHAPTER SEVEN 69 

forth, naturally, without the intervention of rea- 
son. A murmur went up from the other by- 
standers. 

Sam Bolton arose quietly to take his place at 
Dick’s elbow. As yet there was no danger of vio- 
lence, except from the outraged Chippewa. The 
Crees were startled, but they had not yet taken 
sides. All depended on an intrepid front. For a 
moment they stared at one another, the Indians un- 
certain, the Anglo-Saxons, as always, fiercely dom- 
inant in spirit, no matter what the odds against 
them, as long as they are opposed to what they con- 
sider the inferior race. 

Then a flying figure glided to the two. May- 
may-gwan, palpitating with fear, thrust their 
rifles into the white men’s hands, then took her stand 
behind them. 

But Haukemah interfered with all the weight of 
his authority. 

“Stop!” he commanded, sharply. “There is no 
need that friends should bear weapons. What are 
you doing, my young men? Do you judge these 
saganash without hearing what they have to say? 
Ask of them if what the Chippewa says is true.” 


70 THE SILENT PLACES 

“The robe is fine. I gave it for the reason I 
said,” replied Dick. 

The Cree young men, shaken from their instinc- 
tive opposition, sank back. It was none of their 
affair, after all, but a question of veracity between 
Dick and his enemy. And the Chippewa enjoyed 
none too good a reputation. The swift crisis had 
passed. 

Dick laughed his boyish, reckless laugh. 

“Damn if I didn’t pick out the old idiot’s best 
girl!” he cried to his companion; but the latter 
doubtfully shook his head. 


CHAPTER EIGHT 


When next day the band resumed the journey, it 
became evident that May-may-gwan was to be pun- 
ished for her demonstration of the night before. 
Her place in the bow of old Moose Cow’s canoe was 
taken by a little girl, and she was left to follow as 
best she might on foot. 

The travel ashore was exceedingly difficult. A 
dense forest growth of cedar and tamarack pushed 
to the very edge of the water, and the rare open 
beaches were composed of smooth rocks too small 
to afford secure footing, and too large to be trod- 
den under. The girl either slipped and stumbled 
on insecure and ankle-twisting shale, or forced a 
way through the awful tangle of a swamp. As the 
canoeing at this point was not at all difficult, her 
utmost efforts could not keep her abreast of the 
travellers. 

Truth to tell May-may-gwan herself did not ap- 
pear to consider that she was hardly used. Indeed 

n 


79 THE SILENT PLACES 

she let her hair down about her face, took off the 
brilliant bits of color that had adorned her gar- 
ments, and assumed the regulation downcast atti- 
tude of a penitent. But Dick Herron was indig- 
nant. 

“Look here, Sam,” said he, “this thing ain’t 
right at all. She got into all this trouble on our 
account, and we’re riding canoe here slick as car- 
cajou in a pork cache while she pegs along afoot. 
Let’s take her aboard.” 

“Won’t do,” replied Sam, briefly, “can’t inter- 
fere. Let those Injuns run themselves. They’re 
more or less down on us as it is.” 

“Oh, you’re too slow!” objected Dick. “What 
the hell do we care for a lot of copper-skins from 
Rupert’s House! We ain’t got anything to ask 
from them but a few pairs of moccasins, and if they 
don’t want to make them for us, they can use their 
buckskin to tie up their sore heads !” 

He thrust his paddle in close to the bow and 
twisted the canoe towards shore. 

“Come on, Sam,” said he, “show your spunk !” 

The older man said nothing. His steady blue 
eyes rested on his companion’s back not un- 


CHAPTER EIGHT 73 

kindly, although a frown knit the brows above 
them. 

“Come here, little sister,” cried Dick to the girl. 

She picked her way painfully through the scrub 
to the edge of the bank. 

“Get into the canoe,” commanded Dick. 

She drew back in deprecation. 

“Ka’-ka’win 1” she objected, in very real terror. 
“The old-men have commanded that I take the 
Long Way, and who am I that I should not obey? 
It cannot be.” 

“Get in here,” ordered Dick, obstinately. 

“My brother is good to me, but I cannot, for the 
head men have ordered. It would go very hard 
with me, if I should disobey.” 

“Oh, hell!” exploded petulant Dick in English, 
slamming his paddle down against the thwarts. 

He leaped ashore, picked the girl up bodily, 
threw her almost with violence into the canoe, thrust 
the light craft into the stream, and resumed his 
efforts, scowling savagely. 

The girl dropped her face in her hands. When 
the white men’s craft overtook the main band, she 
crouched still lower, shuddering under the grim 


74 THE SILENT PLACES 

scrutiny of her people. Dick’s lofty scorn looked 
neither to right nor left, but paddled fiercely 
ahead until the Indians were well astern and hidden 
by the twists of the river. Sam Bolton proceeded 
serenely on in his accustomed way. 

Only, when the tribesmen had been left behind, 
he leaned forward and began to talk to the girl in 
low-voiced Ojibway, comforting her with many as- 
surances, as one would comfort a child. After a 
time she ceased trembling and looked up. But her 
glance made no account of the steady, old man who 
had so gently led her from her slough of despond, 
but rested on the straight, indignant back of the 
glorious youth who had cast her into it. And Sam 
Bolton, knowing the ways of a maid, merely sighed, 
and resumed his methodical paddling. 

At the noon stop and on portage it was impossi- 
ble to gauge the feeling of the savages in regard to 
the matter, but at night the sentiment was strongly 
enough marked. May-may-gwan herself, much to 
her surprise, was no further censured, and was per- 
mitted to escape with merely the slights and sneers 
the women were able to inflict on her. Perhaps her 
masters, possessed of an accurate sense of justice, 


CHAPTER EIGHT ^5 

realised that the latter affair had not been her fault. 
Or, what is more likely, their race antagonism, al- 
ways ready in these fierce men of the Silent Places, 
seized instinctively on this excuse to burst into a defi- 
nite unfriendliness. The younger men drew frank- 
ly apart. The older made it a point to sit by the 
white men’s fire, but they conversed fonnally and 
with many pauses. Day by day the feeling intensi- 
fied. A strong wind had followed from the north 
for nearly a week, and so, of course, they had seen 
no big game, for the wary animals scented them 
long before they came in sight. Meat began to run 
low. So large a community could not subsist on 
the nightly spoils of the net and traps. The con- 
tinued ill-luck was attributed to the visitors. Final- 
ly camp was made for a day while Crooked Nose, 
the best trailer and hunter of them all, went out to 
get a caribou. Dick, hoping thus to win a little 
good will, lent his Winchester for the occasion. 

The Indian walked very carefully through the 
mossy woods until he came upon a caribou trail still 
comparatively fresh. Nobody but Crooked Nose 
could have followed the faint indications, but he 
did so, at first rapidly, then more warily, finally at 


76 THE SILENT PLACES 

a very snail’s pace. His progress was noiseless. 
Such a difficult result was accomplished primarily 
by his quickness of eye in selecting the spots on 
which to place his feet, and also to a great extent 
by the fact that he held his muscles so pliantly tense 
that the weight of his body came down not all at 
once, but in increasing pressure until the whole was 
supported ready for the next step. He -flowed 
through the woods. 

When the trail became fresh he often paused to 
scrutinise closely, to smell, even to taste the herb- 
age broken by the animal’s hoofs. Once he startled 
a jay, but froze into immobility before that watch- 
man of the woods had sprung his alarm. For full 
ten minutes the savage poised motionless. Then the 
bird flitted away, and he resumed his careful stalk. 

It was already nearly noon. The caribou had 
been feeding slowly forward. Now he would lie 
down. And Crooked Nose knew very well that the 
animal would make a little detour to right or left 
so as to be able to watch his back track. 

Crooked Nose redoubled his scrutiny of the 
broken herbage. Soon he left the trail, moving 
like a spirit, noiselessly, steadily, but so slowly that 


CHAPTER EIGHT 77 

it would have required a somewhat extended obser- 
vation to convince you that he moved at all. His 
bead-like black eyes roved here and there. He did 
not look for a caribou — no such fool he — ^but for 
a splotch of brown, a deepening of shadow, a con- 
tour of surface which long experience had taught 
him could not be due to the forest’s ordinary play 
of light and shade. After a moment his gaze cen- 
tred. In the lucent, cool, green shadow of a thick 
clump of moose maples he felt rather than discerned 
a certain warmth of tone. You and I would prob- 
ably have missed the entire shadow. But Crooked 
Nose knew that the warmth of tone meant the 
brown of his quarry’s summer coat. He cocked his 
rifle. 

But a caribou is a large animal, and only a few 
spots are fatal. Crooked Nose knew better than to 
shoot at random. He whistled. 

The dark colour dissolved. There were no 
abrupt movements, no noises, but suddenly the 
caribou seemed to develop from the green shadow 
mist, to stand, his ears pricked forward, his lustrous 
eyes wide, his nostrils quivering toward the un- 
known something that had uttered the sound. It 


78 THE SILENT PLACES 

was like magic. An animal was now where, a 

moment before, none had been. 

Crooked Nose raised the rifle, sighted steadily at 
the shoulder, low down, and pulled the trigger. A 
sharp click alone answered his intention. Accus- 
tomed only to the old trade-gun, he had neglected 
to throw down and back the lever which should lift 
the cartridge from the magazine. 

Instantly the caribou snorted aloud and crashed 
noisily away. A dozen lurking Canada jays 
jumped to the tops of spruces and began to scream. 
Red squirrels, in all directions, alternately whirred 
their rattles and chattered in an ecstasy of rage. 
The forest was alarmed. 

Crooked Nose glanced at the westering sun, and 
set out swiftly in a direct line for the camp of his 
companions. Arrived there he marched theatrically 
to the white men, cast the borrowed rifle at their 
feet, and returned to the side of the fire, where he 
squatted impassively on his heels. The hunt had 
failed. 

All the rest of the afternoon the men talked sul- 
lenly together. There could be no doubt that 
trouble was afoot. Toward night some of the 


CHAPTER EIGHT 79 

younger members grew so bold as to cast fierce 
looks in the direction of the white visitors. 

Finally late in the evening old Haukemah came 
to them. For some time he sat silent and grave, 
smoking his pipe, and staring solemnly into the 
coals. 

“Little Father,” said he at last, “you and I are 
old men. Our blood is cool. We do not act quickly. 
But other men are young. Their blood is hot and 
swift, and it is quick to bring them spirit- 
thoughts.^ They say you have made the wind, 
kee-way-din, the north wind, to blow so that we can 
have no game. They say you conjured Crooked 
Nose so that he brought back no caribou, although 
he came very near it. They say, too, that you seek 
a red man to do him a harm, and their hearts are evil 
toward you on that account. They say you have 
made the power of the old-men as nothing, for what 
they commanded you denied when you brought our 
little sister in your canoe. I know nothing of these 
things, except the last, which was foolishness in the 
doing,” the old man glanced sharply at Dick, 
puffed on his nearly extinguished pipe until it was 


* Fancies. 


80 THE SILENT PLACES 

well alight, and went on. “My brothers say they 
are looking places for winter posts; I believe them. 
They say their hearts are kind toward my people; 
I believe them. Kee-way-din, the north wind, has 
many times before blown up the river, and Crooked 
Nose is a fool. My heart is good toward you, but 
it is not the heart of my young men. They mur- 
mur and threaten. Here our trails fork. My 
brothers must go now their own way.” 

“Good,” replied Sam, after a moment. “I am 
g'lad my brother’s heart is good toward me, and 
I know what young men are. We will go. Tell 
your young men.” 

An expression of relief overspread Haukemah’s 
face. Evidently the crisis had been more grave 
than he had acknowledged. He thrust his hand 
inside his loose capote and brought forth a small 
bundle. 

“Moccasins,” said he. 

Sam looked them over. They were serviceable, 
strong deerskin, with high tops of white linen cloth 
procured at the Factory, without decoration save 
for a slender line of silk about the tongue. Some- 
thing approaching a smile flickered over old Hau- 


CHAPTER EIGHT 81 

kemah’s countenance as he fished out of his side 
pocket another pair. 

“For Eagle-eye,” he said, handing them to 
Dick. The young man had gained the sobriquet, 
not because of any remarkable clarity of vision, but 
from the peculiar aquiline effect of his narrow 
gaze. 

The body of the moccasins were made of buck- 
skin as soft as silk, smoked to a rich umber. The 
tops were of fawnskin, tanned to milky white. 
Where the two parts joined, the edges had been al- 
lowed to fall half over the foot in an exaggerated 
welt, lined brilliantly with scarlet silk. The orna- 
mentation was heavy and elaborate. Such mocca- 
sins often consume, in the fashioning, the idle 
hours of months. The Indian girl carries them 
with her everywhere, as her more civilised sister car- 
ries an embroidery frame. On dress occasions in 
the Far North a man’s standing with his women- 
kind can be accurately gauged by the magnificence 
of his foot-'gear. 

“The gift of May-may-gwan,” explained Hau- 
kemah. 

“Well, I’ll be damned !” said Dick, in English. 


82 THE SILENT PLACES 

“Will my brother be paid in tea or in tobacco?” 
inquired Sam Bolton. 

Haukemah arose. 

“Let these remind you always that my heart is 
good,” said he. “I may tell my young men that 
you go.?” 

“Yes. We are grateful for these.” 

“Old fellow’s a pretty decent sort,” remarked 
Dick, after Haukemah had stalked away. 

“There couldn’t anything have happened better 
for us!” cried Sam. “Here I was wondering how 
we could get away. It wouldn’t do to travel with 
them much longer, and it wouldn’t do to quit them 
without a good reason. I’m mighty relieved to get 
shut of them. The best way over into the Kabin- 
akagam is by way of a little creek the Injuns call 
the Mattawishguia, and that ought to be a few 
hours ahead of us now.” He might have added that 
all these annoyances, which he was so carefully dis- 
counting, had sprung from Dick’s thoughtlessness ; 
but he was silent, sure of the young man’s value 
when the field of his usefulness should be reached. 


CHAPTER NINE 


Dick Herron and Sam Bolton sat on the trunk of a 
fallen tree. It was dim morning. Through the 
haze that shrouded the river figures moved. Occa- 
sionally a sharp sound eddied the motionless silAice 
— a paddle dropped, the prow of a canoe splashed 
as it was lifted to the water, the tame crow uttered 
a squawk. Little hy little the groups dwindled. 
Invisible canoes were setting out, heyond the limits 
of vision. Soon there remained hut a few scattered, 
cowled figures, the last women hastily loading their 
craft that they might not be left behind. Now 
these, too, thrust through the gray curtain of fog. 
The white men were alone. 

With the passing of the multitude once again 
the North came close. Spying on the deserted camp 
an hundred smaller woods creatures fearfully ap- 
proached, bright-eyed, alert, ready to retreat, but 
eager to investigate for scraps of food that might 
have been left. Squirrels poised in spruce-trees, 
83 


84 THE SILENT PLACES 

leaped boldly through space, or hurried across lit- 
tle open stretches of ground. Meat-hawks, their 
fluffy plumage smoothed to alertness, swooped here 
and there. Momentary and hasty scurryings in the 
dead leaves attested the presence of other animals, 
faint chirpings and rustlings the presence of other 
birds, following these their most courageous fora- 
gers. In a day the Indian camp would have taken 
on the character of the forest ; in a month, an an- 
cient ruin, it would have fitted as accurately with 
its surroundings as an acorn in the cup. 

Now the twisted vapours drained from among 
the tree-trunks into the river bed, where it lay, not 
more lhan five feet deep, accurately marking the 
course T the stream. The sun struck across the 
tops of the trees. A chickadee, upside down in 
bright-eyed contemplation, uttered two flute-notes. 
Instantly a winter-wren, as though at a signal, went 
into ecstatic ravings. The North was up and about 
her daily business. 

Sam Bolton and Dick finally got under way. 
After an hour they arrived opposite the mouth of 
a tributary stream. This Sam announced as the 
Mattawishguia. Immediately they turned to it. 


CHAPTER NINE 85 

The Mattawishguia would be variously de- 
scribed ; in California as a river, in New England 
as a brook, in Superior country as a trout stream. 
It is an hundred feet wide, full of rapids, almost all 
fast water, and, except in a few still pools, from a 
foot to two feet deep. The bottom is of round 
stones. 

Travel by canoe in such a stream is a farce. The 
water is too fast to pole against successfully more 
than half the time; the banks are too overgrown for 
tracking with the tow-line. About the only system 
is to get there in the best way possible. Usually this 
meant that Dick waded at the bow and Sam at the 
stern, leaning strongly against the current. Bowl- 
ders of all sorts harassed the free passage, stones 
rolled under the feet, holes of striking unexpected- 
ness lay in wait, and the water was icy cold. Once 
in a while they were able to paddle a few hun- 
dred feet. Then both usually sat astride the ends 
of the canoe, their legs hanging in the water in or- 
der that the drippings might not fall inside. As 
this was the early summer, they occasionally kicked 
against trees to drive enough of the numbness from 
their legs so that they could feel the bottom. 


86 THE SILENT PLACES 

It was hard work and cold work and wearing, 
for it demanded its exact toll for each mile, and 
was as insistent for the effort at weary night as at 
fresh morning. 

Dick, in the vigour of his young strength, seemed 
to like it. The leisure of travel with the Indians 
had barely stretched his muscles. Here was some- 
thing against which he could exert his utmost force. 
He rejoiced in it, taking great lungfuls of air, 
bending his shoulders, breaking through these outer 
defences of the North with wanton exuberance, 
blind to everything, deaf to everything, oblivious 
of all other mental and physical sensations except 
the delight of applying his skill and strength to the 
subduing of the stream. 

But Sam, patient, uncomplaining, enduring, re- 
tained still the broader outlook. He, too, fought 
the water and the cold, adequately and strongly, 
but it was with the unconsciousness of long habit. 
His mind recognised the Forest as well as the 
Stream. The great physical thrill over the poise 
between perfect health and the opposing of difficul- 
ties he had left behind him with his youth ; as indeed 
he had, in a lesser sense, gained with his age an 


CHAPTER NINE 87 

indifference to discomfort. He was cognisant of 
the stillness of the woods, the presence of the birds 
and beasts, the thousand subtleties that make up 
the personality of the great forest. 

And with the strange sixth sense of the accus- 
tomed woodsman Sam felt, as they travelled, that 
something was wrong. The impression did not 
come to him through any of the accustomed chan- 
nels. In fact, it hardly reached his intellect as yet. 
Through long years his intuitions had adapted 
themselves to their environment. The subtle in- 
fluences the forest always disengaged found in the 
delicately attuned fibres of his being that which vi- 
brated in unison with them. Now this adjustment 
was in some way disturbed. To Sam Bolton the 
forijst was different, and this made him uneasy with- 
out his knowing why. From time to time he 
stopped suddenly, every nerve quivering, his nos- 
trils wide, like some wild thing alert for danger. 
And always the other five senses, on which his mind 
depended, denied the sixth. Nothing stirred but 
the creatures of the wilderness. 

Yet always the impression persisted. It was ea- 
sily put to flight, and yet it always returned. 


88 THE SILENT PLACES 

Twice, while Dick rested in the comfort of tobacco, 
Sam made long detours back through the woods, 
looking for something, he knew not what ; uneasy, 
he knew not why. Always he found the forest 
empty. Everything, well ordered, was in its accus- 
tomed place. He returned to the canoe, shaking his 
head, unable to rid himself of the sensation of some- 
thing foreign to the established order of things. 

At noon the men drew ashore on a little point of 
rock. There they boiled tea over a small fire, and 
ate the last of their pilot’s bread, together with ba- 
con and the cold meat of partridges. By now the 
sun was high and the air warm. Tepid odours 
breathed from the forest, and the songs of familiar 
homely birds. Little heated breezes puffed against 
the travellers’ cheeks. In the sun’s rays their gar- 
ments steamed and their muscles limbered. 

Yet even here Sam Bolton was unable to share 
the relaxation of mind and body his companion so 
absolutely enjoyed. Twice he paused, food sus- 
pended, his mouth open, to listen intently for a mo- 
ment, then to finish carrying his hand to his mouth 
with the groping of vague perplexity. Once he 
arose to another of his purposeless circles through 


CHAPTER NINE 89 

the woods. Dick paid no attention to these things, 
(n the face of danger his faculties would be as keen- 
ly on the stretch as his comrade’s; but now, the 
question one merely of difficult travel, the responsi- 
bility delegated to another, he bothered his head 
not at all, but like a good lieutenant left everything 
to his captain, half closed his eyes, and watched the 
smoke curl from his brier pipe. 

When evening fell the little fish-net was stretched 
below a chute of water, the traps set, snares laid. 
As long as these means sufficed for a food supply, 
the ammunition would be saved. Wet clothes were 
hung at a respectful distance from the blaze. 

Sam was up and down all night, uncomfortable, 
indefinitely groping for the influence that unsettled 
his peace of mind. The ghost shadows in the pines ; 
the pattering of mysterious feet ; the cries, loud and 
distant, or faint and near; the whisperings, whist- 
lings, sighings, or crashes; all the thousand ethe- 
real essences of day-time noises that go to make up 
the Night and her silences — these he knew. What 
he did not know, could not understand, was within 
himself. What he sought was that thing in Nature 
which should correspond. 


90 THE SILENT PLACES 

The next day at noon he returned to Dick after 
a more than usually long excursion, carrying some 
object. He laid it before his companion. The ob- 
ject proved to be a flat stone ; and on the flat stone 
was the wet print of a moccasin. 

“We’re followed,” he said, briefly. 

Dick seized the stone and examined it closely. 

“It’s too blurred,” he said, at last ; “I can’t make 
it out. But th’ man who made that track wasn’t 
far off. Couldn’t you make trail of him ? He must 
have been between you an’ me when you found this 
rock.” 

“No,” Sam demurred, “he wasn’t. This mocca- 
sin was pointed down stream. He heard me, and 
went right on down with th’ current. He’s stick- 
ing to the water all the way so as to leave no trail.” 

“No use trying to follow an Injun who knows 
you’re after him,” agreed Dick. 

“It’s that Chippewa, of course,” proffered Sam. 
“I always was doubtful of him. Now he’s followin’ 
us to see what we’re up to. Then, he ain’t any too 
friendly to you, Dick, ’count of that scrap and th’ 
girl. But I don’t think that’s what he’s up to — not 
yet, at least. I believe he’s some sort of friend or 


CHAPTER NINE 91 

kin of that Jingoss, an’ he wants to make sure that 
we’re after him.” 

“Why don’t he just ambush us, then, an’ be done 
with it?” asked Dick. 

“Two to one,” surmised Bolton, laconically. 
“He’s only got a trade-gun — one shot. But more 
likely he thinks it ain’t going to do him much good 
to lay us out. More men would be sent. If th’ 
Company’s really after Jingoss, the only safe thing 
for him is a warning. But his friend don’t want 
to get him out of th’ country on a false alarm.” 

“That’s so,” said Dick. 

They talked over the situation, and what was best 
to be done. 

“He don’t know yet that we’ve discovered him,” 
submitted Sam. “My scouting around looked like 
huntin’, and he couldn’t a seen me pick up that 
stone. We better not try to catch him till we can 
make sure. He’s got to camp somewheres. We’ll 
wait till night. Of course he’ll get away from th’ 
stream, and he’ll cover his trail. Still, they’s a 
moon. I don’t believe anybody could do it but you, 
Dick. If you don’t make her, why there ain’t 
nothing lost. We’ll just have to camp down here 


92 THE SILENT PLACES 

an’ go to trapping until he gets sick of hanging 

around.” 

So it was agreed. Dick, under stress of danger, 
was now a changed man. What he lacked in expe- 
rience and the power to synthesise, he more than 
made up in the perfection of his senses and a certain 
natural instinct of the woods. He was a better 
trailer than Sam, his eyesight was keener, his hear- 
ing more acute, his sense of smell finer, his every 
nerve alive and tingling in vibrant unison with the 
life about him. Where Sam laboriously arrived 
by the aid of his forty years’ knowledge, the young- 
er man leaped by the swift indirection of an Indian 
— or a woman. Had he only possessed, as did Bol- 
ton, a keen brain as well as keen higher instincts, he 
would have been marvellous. 

The old man sat near the camp-fire after dark 
that night sure that Herron was even then conduct- 
ing the affair better than he could have done him- 
self. He had confidence. No faintest indication, — 
even in the uncertainty of moonlight through the * 
trees, — that a man had left the river would escape 
the young man’s minute inspection. And in the 
search no twig would snap under those soft-moc- 


CHAPTER NINE 93 

casined feet ; no betraying motion of brush or brake 
warn the man he sought. Dick’s woodcraft of that 
sort was absolute; just as Sam Bolton’s woodcraft 
also was absolute — of its sort. It might be long, 
but the result was certain, — unless the Indian him- 
self suspected. 

Dick had taken his rifle. 

“You know,” Sam reminded him, significantly, 
“we don’t really need that Injun.” 

“I know,” Dick had replied, grimly. 

Now Sam Bolton sat near the fire waiting for the 
sound of a shot. From time to time he spread his 
gnarled, carved-mahogany hands to the blaze. Un- 
der his narrow hat his kindly gray-blue eyes, wrin- 
kled at the corners with speculation and good hu- 
mour, gazed unblinking into the light. As always 
he smoked. 

Time went on. The moon climbed, then descend- 
ed again. Finally it shone almost horizontally 
through the tree-trunks, growing larger and larger 
until its field was crackled across with a frostwork 
of twigs and leaves. B}’^ and by it reached the edge 
of a hill-bank, visible through an opening, and 
paused. It had become huge, gigantic, big with 


94 THE SILENT PLACES 

mystery. A wolf sat directly before it, silhouetted 
sharply. Presently he raised his pointed nose, 
howling mournfully across the waste. 

The fire died down to coals. Sam piled on fresh 
wood. It hissed spitefully, smoked voluminously, 
then leaped into flame. The old woodsman sat as 
though carved from patience, waiting calmly the 
issue. 

Then through the shadows, dancing ever more 
gigantic as they became more distant, Sam Bolton 
caught the solidity of something moving. The ob- 
ject was as yet indefinite, mysterious, flashing mo- 
mentarily into view and into eclipse as the tree- 
trunks intervened or the shadows flickered. The 
woodsman did not stir ; only his eyes narrowed with 
attention. Then a branch snapped, noisy, care- 
lessly broken. Sam’s expectancy flagged. Who- 
ever it was did not care to hide his approach. 

But in a moment the watcher could make out that 
the figures were two; one erect and dominant, the 
other stooping in surrender. Sam could not under- 
stand. A prisoner would be awkward. But he 
waited without a motion, without apparent interest, 
in the indifferent attitude of the woods-runner. 


CHAPTER NINE 95 

Now the two neared the outer circle of light; 
they stepped within it; they stopped at the fire’s 
edge. Sam Bolton looked up straight into the face 
of Dick’s prisoner. 

It was May-may-gwan, the Ojibway girl. 


f 


T 


CHAPTER TEN 

Dick pulled the girl roughly to the fireside, where 
he dropped her arm, leaving her downcast and sub- 
missive. He was angry all through with the pow- 
erless rage of the man whose attentions a woman 
has taken more seriously than he had intended. 
Suddenly he was involved more deeply than he had 
meant. 

“Well, what do you think of that.'*” he cried. 

“What you doing here.?” asked Sam in Ojib- 
way, although he knew what the answer would be. 

She did not reply, however. 

“Hell !” burst out Dick. 

“Well, keep your hair on,” advised Sam Bolton, 
with a grin. “You shouldn’t be so attractive, 
Dicky.” 

The latter growled. 

“Now you’ve got her, what you going to do with 
her.?” pursued the older man. 

•96 


CHAPTER TEN 97 

“Do with her?” exploded Dick; “what in hell do 
you mean? I don’t want her; she’s none of my 
funeral. She’s got to go back, of course.” 

“Oh, sure !” agreed Sam. “She’s got to go back. 
Sure thing ! It’s only two days down stream, and 
then the Crees would have only four days’ start and 
getting farther every minute. A mere ten days in 
the woods without an outfit. Too easy; especially 
for a woman. But of course you’ll give her your 
outfit, Dick.” 

He mused, gazing into the flames, his eyes droll 
over this new complication introduced by his 
thoughtless comrade. 

“Well, we can’t have her with us,” objected 
Dick, obstinately. “She’d hinder us, and bother us, 
and get in our way, and we’d have to feed her — 
we may have to starve ourselves; — and she’s no 
damn use to us. She can’t go. I won’t have it; I 
didn’t bargain to lug a lot of squaws around on 
this trip. She came ; I didn’t ask her to. Let her 
get out of it the best way she can. She’s an Injun. 
She can make it all right through the woods. And 
if she has a hard time, she ought to.” 

“Nice mess, isn’t it, Dick?” grinned the other. 


98 


THE SILENT PLACES 


“No mess about it. I haven’t anything to do 
with such a fool trick. What did she expect to gain 
tagging us through the woods that way half a mile 
to the rear.f^ She was just waiting ’till we got so 
far away from th’ Crees that we couldn’t send her 
back. I’ll fool her on that, damn her !” He kicked 
a log back into place, sending the sparks eddying. 

“I wonder if she’s had anything to eat lately.?” 
said Bolton. 

“I don’t care a damn whether she has or not,” 
said Dick. 

“Keep your hair on, my son,” advised Sam again. 
“You’re hot because you thought you’d got shut of 
th’ whole affair, and now you find you haven’t.” 

“You make me sick,” commented Dick. 

“Mebbe,” admitted the woodsman. He fell si- 
lent, staring straight before him, emitting short 
puffs from his pipe. The girl stood where she had 
been thrust. 

“I’ll start her back in the morning,” proffered 
Dick after a few moments. Then, as this elicited 
no remark, “We can stock her up with jerky, and 
there’s no reason she shouldn’t make it.” Sam re- 
mained grimly silent. “Is there?” insisted Dick. 


CHAPTER TEN 99 

He waited a minute for a reply. Then, as none 
came, “Hell !” he exclaimed, disgustedly, and 
turned away to sit on a log the other side of the fire 
with all the petulance of a child. 

“Now look here, Sam,” he broke out, after an in- 
terval. “We might as well get at this thing 
straight. We can’t keep her with us, now, can we.?^” 

Sam removed his pipe, blew a cloud straight be- 
fore him, and replaced it. 

Dick reddened slowly, got up with an incidental 
remark about damn fools, and began to spread his 
blankets beneath the lean-to shelter. He muttered 
to himself, angered at the dead opposition of cir- 
cumstance which he could not push aside. Sud- 
denly he seized the girl again by the arm. 

“Why you come.^” he demanded in Ojibway. 
“Where you get your blankets? Where you get 
your grub? How you make the Long Trail? What 
you do when we go far and fast? What we do with 
you now ?” Then meeting nothing but the stolidity 
with which the Indian always conceals pain, he 
flung her aside. “Stupid owl !” he growled. 

He sat on the ground and began to take off his 
moccasins with ostentatious deliberation, abruptly 


100 THE SILENT PLACES 

indifferent to it all. Slowly he prepared for the 
night, yawning often, looking at the sky, arrang- 
ing the fire, emphasising and delaying each of his 
movements as though to prove to himself that he 
acknowledged only the habitual. At last he turned 
in, his shoulder thrust aggressively toward the two 
motionless figures by the fire. 

It was by now close to midnight. The big moon 
had long since slipped from behind the solitary wolf 
on the hill. Yet Sam Bolton made no move toward 
his blankets, and the girl did not stir from the 
downcast attitude into which she had first fallen. 
The old woodsman looked at the situation with 
steady eyes. He realised to the full what Dick 
Herron’s thoughtlessness had brought on them. 
A woman, even a savage woman inured to the 
wilderness, was a hindrance. She could not travel 
as fast nor as far; she could not bear the same 
burdens, endure the same hardship ; she would 
consume her share of the provisions. And be- 
fore this expedition into the Silent Places should 
be finished the journeying might require the 
speed of a course after quarry, the packing would 
come finally to the men’s back, the winter would 


CHAPTER TEN 101 

have to be met in the open, and the North, 
lavish during these summer months, sold her suste- 
nance dear when the snows fell. The time might 
come when these men would have to arm for the 
struggle. Cruelty, harshness, relentlessness, selfish- 
ness, singleness of purpose, hardness of heart they 
would have perforce to assume. And when they 
stripped for such a struggle, Sam Bolton knew 
that among other things this woman would have to 
go. If the need arose, she would have to die; for 
this quest was greater than the life of any woman 
or any man. Would it not be better to send her 
back through certain hardship now, rather than 
carry her on to a possible death in the White 
Silence. For the North as yet but skirmished. 
Her true power lay behind the snows and the 
ice. 

The girl stood in the same attitude. Sam Bolton 
spoke to her. 

“May-may-gwan.” 

“Little Father.” 

“Why have you followed us.?” 

.The girl did not reply. 

“Sister,” said the woodsman, kindly, “I am an 


102 THE SILENT PLACES 

old man. You have called me Father. Why have 

you followed us.^^” 

“I found Jibiwanisi good in my sight,” she said, 
with a simple dignity, “and he looked on me.” 

“It was a foolish thing to do.” 

“Ae,” replied the girl. 

“He does not wish to take you in his wigwam.” 

“Eagle-eye is angry now. Anger melts under 
the sun.” 

“I do not think his will.” 

“Then I will make his fire and his buckskin and 
cook his food.” 

“We go on a long journey.” 

“I will follow.” 

“No,” replied the woodsman, abruptly, “we will 
send you back.” 

The girl remained silent. 

“Well.?” insisted Bolton. 

“I shall not go.” 

A little puzzled at this insistence, delivered in so 
calm a manner, Sam hesitated as to what to say. 
Suddenly the girl stepped forward to face him. 

“Little Father,” she said, solenmly, “I cannot 
go. Those are not my people. I do not know my 


CHAPTER TEN 103 

people. My heart is not with them. My heart is 
here. Little Father,” she went on, dropping her 
voice, “it is here, here, here !” she clasped her breast 
with both hands. “I do not know how it is. There 
is a pain in my breast, and my heart is sad with the 
words of Eagle-eye. And yet here the birds sing 
and the sun is bright. Away from here it is dark. 
That is all I know. I do not understand it. Little 
Father. My heart is here. I cannot go away. If 
you drive me out, I shall follow. Kill me, if you 
wish. Little Father ; I do not care for that. I shall 
not hinder you on the Long Trail. I shall do many 
things. When I cannot travel fast enough, then 
leave me. My heart is here; I cannot go away.” 
She stopped abruptly, her eyes glowing, her breath 
short with the quivering of passion. Then all at 
once her passivity fell on her. She stood, her head 
downcast, patient, enduring, bending to circum- 
stance meekly as an Indian woman should. 

Sam Bolton made no reply to this appeal. He 
drew his sheath-knife, cut in two the doubled three- 
point blanket, gave one of the halves to the girl, and 
indicated to her a place under the shelter. In the 
firelight his face hardened as he cast his mind again 


104 THE SILENT PLACES 

over the future. He had not solved the problem, 
only postponed it. In the great struggle women 
would have no place. 

At two o’clock, waking in the manner of woods- 
men and sailors the world over, he arose to replenish 
the fire. He found it already bright with new fuel, 
and the Indian girl awake. She lay on her side, the 
blanket about her shoulders, her great wistful eyes 
wide open. A flame shot into the air. It threw a 
momentary illumination into the angles of the shel- 
ter, discovering Dick, asleep in heavy exhaustion, 
his right forearm across his eyes. The girl stole a 
glance at Sam Bolton. Apparently he was busy 
with the fire. She reached out to touch the young 
man’s blanket. 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 


Dick was afoot after a few hours’ sleep. He 
aroused Sam and went about the preparation of 
breakfast. May-maj-gwan attempted to help, but 
both she and her efforts were disregarded. She 
brought wood, but Dick rustled a supply just the 
same, paying no attention to the girl’s little pile; 
she put on fresh fuel, but Dick, without impatience, 
— indeed, as though he were merely rearranging the 
fire, — contrived to undo her work; she brought to 
hand the utensils, but Dick, in searching for them, 
always looked where they had originally been 
placed. His object seemed not so much to thwart 
the girl as to ignore her. When breakfast was 
ready he divided it into two portions, one of which 
he ate. After the meal he washed the few dishes. 
Once he took a cup from the girl’s hand as she was 
drying it, much as he would have taken it from the 
top of a stump. He then proceeded to clean it as 
though it had just been used. 

105 


106 THE SILENT PLACES 

May-may-gwan made no sign that she noticed 
these things. After a little she helped Sam roll the 
blankets, strike the shelter, construct the packs. 
Here her assistance was accepted, though Sam did 
not address her. After a few moments the start was 
made. 

The first few hours were spent as before, wading 
the stream. As she could do nothing in the water, 
May-may-gwan kept to the woods, walking stolidly 
onward, her face to the front, expressionless, hiding 
whatever pain she may have felt. This side of noon, 
however, the travellers came to a cataract falling 
over a fifty-foot ledge into a long, cliff -bordered 
pool. 

It became necessary to portage. The hill 
pinched down steep and close. There existed no 
trails. Dick took the little camp axe to find a way. 
He clambered up one after the other three ra- 
vines — grown with brush and heavy ferns, damp 
with a trickle of water, — always to be stopped near 
the summit by a blank wall impossible to scale. At 
length he found a passage he thought might be 
practicable. Thereupon he cut a canoe trail back 
to the water-side. 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 107 

In clearing this trail his attention turned to 
making room for a canoe on a man’s back. There- 
fore the footing he bothered with not at all. Sap- 
lings he clipped down by bending them with the left 
hand, and striking at the strained fibres where they 
bowed. A single blow would thus fell treelets of 
some size. When he had finished his work there re- 
sulted a winding, cylindrical hole in the forest 
growth some three feet from the ground. Through 
this cylinder the canoe would be passed while its 
bearer picked a practised way among slippery 
rocks, old stubs, new sapling stumps, and under- 
growth below. Men who might, in later years, wish 
to follow this Indian trail, would look not for 
footprints but for waist-high indications of the 
axe. 

When the canoe had been carried to the top of 
the bluff that marked the water-fall, it was re- 
launched in a pool. In the meantime May-may- 
gwan, who had at last found a use for her willing- 
ness, carried the packs. Dick re-embarked. His 
companion perceived that he intended to shove off 
as soon as the other should have taken his place. 
Sam frustrated that, however, by holding fast to 


108 THE SILENT PLACES 

the gunwale. May-may-gwan , stepped in amid- 
ships, with a half-deprecating glance at the young 
man’s inscrutable back. At the end of the brief 
paddling the upper pool allowed them, she was first 
ashore. 

Late that afternoon the travel for a half mile 
became exceedingly difficult. The stream took on 
the character of a mountain brook. It hardly paid 
to float the canoe in the tiny holes among the rocks, 
miniature cascades, and tortuous passages. The 
forest grew to the very banks, and arched over to 
exclude the sun. Every few feet was to be avoided 
a tree, half clinging to the bank, leaning at a peri- 
lous slant out over the creek. Fortunately the 
spring freshets in this country of the great snows 
were powerful enough to sweep out the timber act- 
ually fallen, so the course of the stream itself was 
clear of jams. At length the travellers reached a 
beaver-dam, and so to a little round lake among the 
hills. They had come to the head waters of the 
Mattawishguia. 

In the lake stood two moose, old and young. 
Dick succeeded in killing the yearling, though it 
took two shots from his Winchester. It was de- 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 109 

cided to camp here over one day in order that the 
meat might be saved. 

A circle of hills surrounded the little body of 
water. On them grew maples and birches, among 
which scattered a few hemlocks and an occasional 
pine. At the edge of the water were cedars lean- 
ing out to look at their reflections. A deep and sol- 
emn peace seemed to brood over the miniature lake. 
Such affairs as bird songs, the slap of a paddle, the 
shots from Dick’s rifle could not break this strange 
stillness. They spoke hastily, and relapsed to si- 
lence, like the rare necessary voices in a room where 
one lies dead. The hush, calm and primal, with the 
infinity of the wilderness as its only measure of time, 
took no account of the shock of a second’s inter- 
ruption. Two loons swam like ghosts. Every- 
where and nowhere among the trees, in the hills, 
over the water, the finer senses were almost uneasily 
conscious of a vast and awful presence. It was as 
yet aloof, unheeding, buddliistic, brooding in nir- 
vanic calm, still unawakened to put forth the might 
of its displeasure. Under its dreaming eyes men 
might, fearfully and with reverence, carry on their 
affairs, — fearfully and with reverence, catching the 


110 THE SILENT PLACES 

breath, speaking low, growing silent and stern in 

the presence of the North. 

At the little camp under the cedars, Dick Herron 
and Sam Bolton, assisted by the Ojibway girl, May- 
may-gwan, cut the moose-meat into thin strips, 
salted, and dried it in the bright sun. And since 
the presence of loons argued fish, they set their nets 
and lines. Several days thus passed. 

In their relations the three promptly settled back 
into a species of routine. Men who travel in the 
Silent Places speedily take on the colour of their 
surroundings. They become silent also. A band 
of voyageurs of sufficient strength may chatter and 
sing ; they have by the very force of numbers created 
an atmosphere of their own. But two are not 
enough for this. They have little to say, for their 
souls are laved by the great natural forces. 

Dick Herron, even in ordinary circumstances, 
withdrew rather grimly into himself. He looked 
out at things from beneath knit brows ; he held his 
elbows close to his sides, his fists clenched, his whole 
spiritual being self-contained and apart, watchful 
for enmity in what he felt but could not understand. 
But to this, his normal habit, now was added a sul 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 1111 

lenness almost equally instinctive. In some way he 
felt himself aggrieved by the girl’s presence. At 
first it was merely the natural revolt of a very young 
man against assuming responsibility he had not in- 
vited. The resulting discomfort of mind, however, 
he speedily assigned to the girl’s account. He con- 
tinued, as at first, to ignore her. But in the slow 
rumination of the forest he became more and more 
irritably sensible of her presence. Sam’s tacitur- 
nity was contrastedly sunny and open. He looked 
on things about him with the placid receptivity of 
an old man, and said nothing because there was 
nothing to say. The Ojibway girl remained in- 
scrutable, helping where she could, apparently de- 
sirous of neither praise nor blame. 

At the end of three days the provisions were 
ready. There had resulted perhaps sixty pounds 
of “jerky.” It now became necessary to leave the 
water-way, and to strike directly through the for- 
est, over the hills, and into the country of the Ka- 
binikagam. 

Dick shouldered a thirty-pound pack and the ca- 
noe. Sam Bolton and the girl managed the re- 
mainder. Every twenty minutes or so they would 


112 THE SILENT PLACES 

rest, sinking back against the trunks of trees, mossy 
stones, or a bank of new ferns. The forest was open 
and inexpressibly lofty. Moose maples, young 
birches, and beeches threw their coolness across the 
face, then above them the columns of the trunks, 
then far up in green distance the leaves again, like 
the gold-set roof of a church. The hill mounted 
always before them. Ancient rocks hoary with 
moss, redolent of dampness, stood like abandoned 
altars given over to decay. A strange, sweet wind 
freighted with stray bird-notes wandered aimlessly. 

Nothing was said. Dick led the way and set the 
intervals of the carrying. When he swung the 
canoe from his shoulders the others slipped their 
tump-lines. Then all rubbed their faces with the 
broad caribou-leaf to keep off the early flies, and 
lay back, arms extended, breathing deep, resting 
like boxers between the rounds. Once at the top of 
the ridge Dick climbed a tree. He did this, not so 
much in expectation of seeing the water-courses 
themselves, as to judge by the general lay of the 
country where they might be found. 

In a bare open space under hemlocks Sam indi- 
cated a narrow, high, little pen, perhaps three feet 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 113 

long by six inches wide, made of cut saplings. 
Dick examined it. 

“Marten deadfall,” he pronounced. “Made last 
winter. Somebody’s been trapping through here.” 

After a time a blaze on a tree was similarly re- 
marked. Then the travellers came to a tiny creek, 
which, being followed, soon debouched into a larger. 
This in turn became navigable, after the north- 
country fashion. That is to say, the canoe with its 
load could much of the time be floated down by the 
men wading in the bed of the creek. Finally Sam, 
who was in the lead, jerked his head toward the left 
bank. 

“Their winter camp,” said he, briefly. 

A dim trail led from the water to a sheltered 
knoll. There stood the framework of a pointed 
tepee, the long poles spread like Angers above their 
crossing point. A little pile of gnawed white skulls 
of various sizes represented at least a portion of the 
season’s catch. Dick turned them over with his 
foot, identifying them idly. From the sheltered 
branches of a near-by spruce hung four pairs of 
snow-shoes cached there until the next winter. Sam 
gave his first attention to these. 


il4 THE SILENT PLACES 

“A man, a woman, and two well-grown children,” 
he pronounced. He ran his hand over the bulging 
raquette with the long tail and the slightly up- 
curved end. “Ojibway pattern,” he concluded. 
“Dick, we’re in the first hunting district. Here’s 
where we get down to business.” 

He went over the ground twice carefully, exam- 
ining the state of the offal, the indications of the 
last fire. 

“They’ve been gone about six weeks,” he sur- 
mised. “If they ain’t gone visiting, they must be 
down-stream somewheres. These fellows don’t 
get in to trade their fur ’till along about 
August.” 

Two days subsequent, late in the afternoon, Dick 
pointed out what looked to be a dark streak be- 
neath a bowlder that lay some distance from the 
banks on a shale bar. 

“What’s that animal.'^” he asked. 

“Can’t make her out,” said Bolton, after inspec- 
tion. 

“Ninny-moosh,” said the Indian girl, indiffer- 
ently. It was the first word she had spoken since 
her talk with the older man. 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 115 

“It’s a dog, all right,” conceded Sam. “She has 
sharp eyes.” 

The animal rose and began to bark. Two more 
crashed toward him through the bushes. A thin 
stream of smoke disengaged itself from the tops of 
the forest trees. As they swept around the bend, 
the travellers saw a man contemplating them stol- 
idly through a screen of leaves. 

The canoe floated on. About an hundred yards 
below the Indians Sam ordered a landing. Camp 
was made as usual. Supper was cooked. The fire 
replenished. Then, just before the late sunset of 
the Far North, the bushes crackled. 

“Now let me do the talking,” warned Sam. 

“All right. I’ll just keep my eye on this,” Dick 
nodded toward the girl. “She’s O jibway, too, you 
know. She may give us away.” 

“She can’t only guess,” Sam reminded. “But 
there ain’t any danger, anyway.” 

The leaves parted. The Indian appeared, saun- 
tering with elaborate carelessness, his beady eyes 
shifting here and there in an attempt to gather 
what these people might be about. 

“Bo’ jou’, bo’ jou’,” he greeted them. 


CHAPTER TWELVE 


The Indian advanced silently to the fireside, where 
he squatted on his heels. He filled a pipe, scraping 
the tobacco from the square plug Sam extended to 
him. While he did this, and while he stuffed it into 
the bowl, his keen eyes shifted here and there, gath- 
ering the material for conclusions. 

Sam, watchful but also silent, could almost fol- 
low his mental processes. The canoe meant travel, 
the meagreness of the outfits either rapid or short 
travel, the two steel traps travel beyond the sources 
of supply. Then inspection passed lightly over the 
girl and from her to the younger man. With a 
flash of illumination Sam Bolton saw how valuable 
in allaying suspicion this evidence of a peaceful er- 
rand might prove to be. Men did not bring their 
women on important missions involving speed and 
danger. 

Abruptly the Indian spoke, going directly to the 
heart of the matter, after the Indian fashion. 

116 


CHAPTER TWELVE 117 

“Where you from?” 

“Winnipeg,” replied Sam, naming the headquar- 
ters of the Company. 

The direction of travel was toward Winnipeg. 
Sam was perfectly aware of the discrepancy, but 
he knew better than to offer gratuitous explanation. 
The Indian smoked. 

“Where you come from now?” he inquired, 
finally. 

“ ’Tschi-gammi.”* 

This was understandable. Remained only the ob- 
ject of an expedition of this peculiar character. 
Sam Bolton knew that the Indian would satisfy 
himself by surmises, — he would never apply the di- 
rect question to a man’s affairs, — and surmise might 
come dangerously near the truth. So he proceeded 
to impart a little information in his own way. 

“You are the hunter of this district?” Sam 
asked. 

“Yes.” 

“How far do you trap?” 

The Indian mentioned creeks and rivers as his 
boundaries. 


Lake Superior. 


118 


THE SILENT PLACES 


“Where do you get your debt?” 

“Missinaibi.” 

“That is a long trail.” 

“Yes.” 

“Do many take it each year?” 

The Indian mentioned rapidly a dozen names of 
families. 

Sam at once took another tack. 

“I do not know this country. Are there large 
lakes ?” 

“There is Animiki.” 

“Has it fish? Goodwood.?” 

“Much wood. Oga,* kinoj.”f 

Sam paused. 

“Could a brigade of canoes reach it easily?” he 
inquired. 

Now a brigade is distinctly an institution of the 
Honourable the Hudson’s Bay Company. It is used 
for two purposes ; to maintain communication with 
tlie outside world, and to establish winter camps in 
the autumn or to break them up in the spring. At 
once the situation became clear. A gleam of com- 
prehension flashed over the Indian’s eyes. With the 


* Pickerel. 


t Pike. 


CHAPTER TWELVE 119 

peculiar attention to detail distinctively the forest 
runner’s he indicated a route. Sam was satisfied to 
let the matter rest there for the present. 

The next evening he visited the Indian’s camp. 
It was made under a spreading tree, the tepee poles 
partly resting against some of the lower branches. 
The squaw and her woman child kept to the shad- 
ows of the wigwam, but the boy, a youth of perhaps 
fifteen years, joined the men by the fire. 

Sam accepted the hospitality of a pipe of to- 
bacco, and attacked the question in hand from a 
ground tacitly assumed since the evening before. 

“If Hutsonbaycompany make winterpost on 
Animiki will you get your debt there instead of 
Missinaibie he asked first of all. 

Of course the Indian assented. 

“How much fur do you get, good year.?” 

The Indian rapidly ran over a list. 

“Lots of fur. Is it going to last.? Do you keep 
district strict here ?” inquired Sam. 

Under cover of this question Sam was feeling for 
important information. As has perhaps been men- 
tioned, in a normal Indian community each head of 
a family is assigned certain hunting districts over 


120 THE SILENT PLACES 

which he has exclusive hunting and trapping priv- 
ileges. This naturally tends toward preservation 
of the fur. An Indian knows not only where each 
beaver dam is situated, but he knows also the num- 
ber of beaver it contains and how many can be taken 
without diminution of the supply. If, however, the 
privileges are not strictly guarded, such modera- 
tion does not obtain. When an Indian finds a dam, 
he cleans it out; because if he does not, the next 
comer will. Sam’s question then apparently had 
reference only to the probability that the fur in a 
close district would be strictly enough preserved to 
make the establishment of a winter post worth while. 
In reality he wanted to measure the possibility of 
an outsider’s gaining a foothold. Logically in a 
section where the tribal rights were rigidly held to, 
this would be impossible except through friendship 
or purchase; while in a more loosely organized 
community a stranger might readily insinuate him- 
self. 

“Good keeping of district,” replied the Indian. 
“I keep head-waters of Kabinikagam down to Sand 
River. When I find man trapping on my ground, 
I shoot him. Fur last all right.” 


CHAPTER TWELVE 121 

This sufficed for the moment. The next morning 
Sam went over early to the other camp. 

“To-day I think we go,” he announced. “Now 
you tell me all the hunters, where I find them, what 
are their districts, how much fur they kill.” 

“Ah hah!” assented the Indian. Sam’s leisurely 
and indirect method had convinced him. Easily 
given information on the other hand would have set 
him to thinking; and to think, with an Indian, is 
usually to become suspicious. 

The two descended to the shore. There they 
squatted on their heels before a little patch of wet 
sand while the Indian explained. He marked 
roughly, but with almost the accuracy of a survey, 
the courses of streams and hills, and told of the 
routes among them. Sam listened, his gnarled ma- 
hogany hand across his mouth, his shrewd gray 
eyes bent attentively on the cabalistic signs and 
scratches. An Indian will remember, from once 
traversing it, not only the greater landmarks, but 
the little incidents of bowlder, current, eddy, strip 
of woods, bend of trail. It remains clear-cut in his 
mind forever after. The old woodsman had in his 
long experience acquired something of this faculty. 


THE SILENT PLACES 
He comprehended the details, and, what is more, 
stored them away in his memory where he could 
turn to them readily. This was no small feat. 

With an abrupt movement of the back of his 
hand the Indian smoothed the sand. Squatting 
back more on his haunches, he refilled his pipe and 
began to tell of the trappers. In their description 
he referred always to the map he had drawn on Bol- 
ton’s ^ imagination as though it had actually lain 
spread out before them. Sam referred each name 
to its district, as you or I would write it across the 
section of a chart, and kept accurately in mind 
which squares of the invisible map had been thus as- 
signed and which not. It was an extraordinary ef- 
fort, but one not unusual among practised woods 
runners. This peculiarly minute and concrete 
power of recollection is early developed in the wild 
life. 

The Indian finished. Sam remained a moment in 
contemplation. The districts were all occupied, and 
the name of Jingoss did not appear. That was, 
however, a small matter. The Ojibway might well 
have changed his name, or he might be paying for 
the privilege of hunting in another man’s territory. 


CHAPTER TWELVE 123 

A less experienced man would have been strongly 
tempted to the more direct question. But Sam knew 
that the faintest hint of ulterior motive would not 
be lost on the Indian’s sharp perceptions. An in- 
quiry, carelessly and indirectly made, might do no 
harm. But then again it might. And it was bet- 
ter to lose two years of time in the search than a sin- 
gle grain of confidence in those with whom the little 
party might come in contact. 

After all, Sam Bolton was well satisfied. He had, 
by his simple diplomacy, gained several valuable 
results. He had firmly convinced one man of a com- 
mon body, wherein news travels quickly, of his ap- 
parent intentions; he had, furthermore, an exact 
knowledge of where to find each and every district 
head-man of the whole Kabinikagam country. 
Whether or not the man he sought would prove to 
be one of these head-men, or the guest or lessee of 
one of them, was a question only to be answered by 
direct search. At least he knew where to search, 
which was a distinct and valuable advantage. 

“Mi-gwetch — thank you,” he said to the Indian 
when he had finished. “I understand. I go now to 
see the Lake. I go to talk to each of your head- 


124 THE SILENT PLACES 

men. I go to see the trapping country with my own 
eyes. When I have seen all, I go to Winnipeg to 
tell my head-man what I have seen.” 

The Indian nodded. It would have been quite 
inconceivable to him had Sam suggested accepting 
anything less than the evidence of his eyes. 

The three resumed their journey that afternoon. 
Sam knew exactly where he was going. Dick had 
fallen into a sullen yet rebellious mood, unaccounta- 
ble even to himself. In his spirit was the ferment 
of a resentfulness absolutely without logical object. 
With such a man ferment demands action. Here, 
in the accustomed labours of this woods travel, was 
nothing to bite on save monotony. Dick Herron 
resented the monotony, resented the deliberation 
necessary to so delicate a mission, resented the un- 
varying tug of his tump-line or the unchanging 
yield of the water to his paddle, resented the pla- 
cidity of the older man, above all resented the meek 
and pathetic submissiveness of the girl. His nar- 
row eyes concentrated their gaze ominously. He 
muttered to himself. The untrained, instinctive 
strength of the man’s spirit fretted against delay. 
His enthusiasm, the fire of his hope, urged him to 


CHAPTER TWELVE 125 

earn his self-approval by great exertion. Great 
exertion was impossible. Always, day by day, night 
by night, he chafed at the snail-like pace with which 
things moved, chafed at the delay imposed by the 
nature of the quest, the policy of the old man, the 
presence of the girl. Only, in the rudimentary 
processes of his intelligence, he confused the three in 
one, and the presence of the girl alone received the 
brunt of his sullen displeasure. In the splendour 
of his strength, head down, heart evil, restrained 
to a bitter obedience only by the knowledge that he 
could do nothing alone, he broke through the 
opposing wilderness. 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 


Sam Bolton gauged perfectly the spirit in his com 
rade, but paid it little attention. He knew it as a 
chemical reaction of a certain phase of forest travel. 
It argued energy, determination, dogged pluck 
when the need should arise, and so far it was good. 
The woods life affects various men in various ways, 
but all in a manner peculiar to itself. It is a reagent 
unlike any to be found in other modes of life. The 
moment its influence reaches the spirit, in that mo- 
ment does the man change utterly from the person 
he has been in other and ordinary surroundings; 
and the instant he emerges from its control he re- 
verts to his accustomed bearing. But in the dwell- 
ing of the woods he becomes silent. It may be the 
silence of a self-contained sufficiency ; the silence of 
an equable mind ; the silence variously of awe, even 
of fear; it may be the silence of sullenness. This, 
as much as the vast stillness of the wilderness, has 
earned for the region its designation of the Silent 
Places. 


126 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 


127 


Nor did the older woodsman fear any direct re- 
sults from the younger’s very real, though baseless, 
anger. These men were bound together by some- 
thing stronger than any part of themselves. Over 
them stood the Company, and to its commands all 
other things gave way. No matter how rebellious 
might be Dick Herron’s heart, how ruffled the sur- 
face of his daily manner, Bolton knew perfectly 
well he would never for a single instant swerve in his 
loyalty to the main object of the expedition. Se- 
rene in this consciousness, the old woodsman dwelt 
in a certain sweet and gentle rumination of his own. 
Among the finer instincts of his being many subtle 
mysteries of the forest found their correspondences. 
The feeling of these satisfied him entirely, though 
of course he was incapable of their intellectualisa- 
tion. 

The days succeeded one another. The camps by 
the rivers or in the woods were in essential all alike. 
The shelter, the shape, and size of the tiny clearing, 
the fire, the cooking utensils scattered about, the 
little articles of personal belonging were the same. 
Only certain details of surrounding differed, and 
they were not of importance, — birch-trees for pop- 


128 THE SILENT PLACES 

lars, cedar for both, a river bend to the northwest 
instead of the southwest, still water for swift, a low 
bank for a high ; but always trees, water, bank, and 
the sky brilliant with stars. After a little the day’s 
progress became a myth, to be accepted only by the 
exercise of faith. The forest was a great tread- 
mill in which men toiled all day, only to be sur- 
rounded at night by the same grandeurs and little- 
nesses they had that morning left. In the face of 
this apparent futility time blew vast. Years were 
as nothing measured by the task of breaking 
through the enchanted web that enmeshed them. 

And yet all knew by experience, though no one of 
them could rise to a realisation of the fact, that some 
day their canoe would round the bend and they 
would find themselves somewhere. Then they could 
say to themselves that they had arrived, and could 
tell themselves that between here and their starting- 
point lay so many hundred miles. Yet in their se- 
cret hearts they would not believe it. They would 
know that in reality it lay but just around the cor- 
ner. Only between were dream-days of the shifting 
forest heavy with toil. 

This is the enchantment the North lays on her 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 129 

children, so that when the toil oppresses them and 
death seems to win, they may not care greatly to 
struggle, knowing that the struggle is vain. 

In the country of the Kabinikagam they visited 
thus many hunting districts. The travel neither 
hastened nor lagged. From time to time it was 
necessary to kill, and then the meat must be cared 
for. Berries and wild rice were to be gathered. 
July drew near its end. 

Sam Bolton, knowing now the men with whom 
he had to deal, found no difficulty in the exercise of 
his simple diplomacy. The Ojibway defaulter was 
not to be heard of, but every nook searched without 
result narrowed the remaining possibilities. Every- 
thing went well enough until late one after- 
noon. 

The portage happened to lead above a narrow 
gorge over a rapids. To accomplish it the travel- 
lers had first to scale a steep little hill, then to skirt 
a huge rounded rock that overhung the gorge. 
The roughness of the surface and the adhesive 
power of their moccasins alone held them to the 
slant. These were well sufficient. Unfortunately, 
however, Dick, without noticing it, had stepped into 


130 THE SILENT PLACES 

a little pool of water on disembarking. Buckskifi 
while dry is very adhesive ; when wet very slippery. 
As he followed Sam out on the curving cheek of the 
rock his foot slid, he lost his equilibrium, was on the 
edge of falling, overbalanced by the top-heavy pack 
he was carrying. Luckily Sam himself was por- 
taging the canoe. Dick, with marvellous quickness, 
ducked loose from the tump-line. The pack bound- 
ed down the slant, fell with a splash, and was 
whirled away. With the impetus of the same mo- 
tion the young man twisted himself as violently as 
possible to regain his footing. He would prob- 
ably have succeeded had it not been for the Indian 
girl. She had been following the two, a few steps 
in the rear. As Dick’s foot turned, she slipped her 
own pack and sprang forward, reaching out her 
arm in the hope of steadying him. Unfortunately 
she did this only in time to get in the way of the 
strong twist Dick made for recovery. The young 
man tottered for an instant on the very brink of 
saving himself, then gave it up, and fell as loosely 
as possible into the current. 

May-may-gwan, aghast at what she had done, 
stood paralyzed, staring into the gorge. San? 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN HSl 

swung the canoe from his shoulders and ran on over 
the hill and down the other side. 

The Indian girl saw the inert body of the woods- 
man dashed down through the moil and water, now 
showing an arm, now a leg, only once, for a single 
instant, the head. Twice it hit obstacles, limp as a 
sack of flour. Then it disappeared. 

Immediately she regained the use of her legs, 
and scrambled over the hill after Sam, her breath 
strangling her. She found below the rapids a pool, 
and half in the water at its edge Dick seated, bruised 
and cut, spitting water, and talking excitedly to 
his companion. Instantly she understood. The 
young woods runner, with the rare quickness of ex- 
pedient peculiar to these people, had allowed him- 
self to be carried through the rapids muscle-loose, 
as an inanimate object would be carried, without 
an attempt to help himself in any way. It was a 
desperate chance, but it was the only ch; ice. The 
slightest stiffening of the muscles, the least struggle 
would have thrown him out of the water’s natural 
channel against the bowlders; and then a rigidly 
held body would have offered only too good a resist- 
ance to the shock. By a miracle of fortune he had 


132 THE SILENT PLACES 

been carried through, bruised and injured, to be 
sure, but conscious. Sam had dragged him to the 
bush-grown bank. There he sat up in the water 
and cleared his lungs. He was wildly excited. 

“She did it!” he burst out, as soon as he could 
speak. “She did it a purpose! She reached out 
and pushed me ! By God, there she is now !” 

With the instinct of the hunter he had managed 
to cling to his rifle. He wrenched at the magazine 
lever, throwing the muzzle forward for a shot, but 
it had been jammed, and he was unable to move it. 

“She reached out and pushed me ! I felt her do 
it !” he cried. He attempted to rise, but fell back, 
groaning with a pain that kept him quiet for sev- 
eral moments. 

“Sam!” he muttered, “she’s there yet. Kill her. 
Damn it, didn’t you see ! I had my balance again, 
and she mshed me! She had it in for me!” His 
face whitened for an instant as he moved, then 
flooded with a red anger. “My God !” he cried, in 
the anguish of a strong man laid low, “she’s bust- 
ed me all over!” He wrenched loose his shoulders 
from Sam’s support, struggled to his knees, and fell 
back, a groan of pain seeming fairly to burst from 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 133 

his heart. His head hit sharply against a stone. 
He lay still. 

“May-may-gwan !” called Sam Bolton, sharply. 

She came at once, running eagerly, the paralysis 
of her distress broken by his voice. Sam directed 
her by nods of the head. With some difficulty they 
carried the unconscious man to the flat and laid him 
down, his head on Sam’s rolled coat. Then, while 
May-may-gwan, under his curtly delivered direc- 
tions, built a fire, heated water, carried down the 
two remaining packs and opened them, Sam ten- 
derly removed Dick’s clothes, and examined him 
from head to foot. The cuts on the head were noth- 
ing to a strong man ; the bruises less. Manipula- 
tion discovered nothing wrong with the collar-bone 
and ribs. But at last Sam uttered a quick excla- 
mation of discovery. 

Dick’s right ankle was twisted strongly outward 
and back. 

An inexperienced man would have pronounced it 
a dislocation, but Sam knew better. He knew better 
because just once, nearly fifteen years before, he 
had assisted Dr. Cockburn at Conjuror’s House in 
the caring for exactly such an accident. Now he 


134. THE SILENT PLACES 

stood for some moments in silence recalling pain- 
fully each little detail of what he had observed and 
of what the physician had told him. 

Rapidly by means of twigs and a tracing on the 
wet sand he explained to May-may-gwan what was 
the matter and what was to be ^one. The fibula, or 
outer bone of the leg, had been snapped at its lower 
end just above the ankle, the foot had been dislo- 
cated to one side, and either the inner ligament of 
the ankle had given way, or — what would be 
more serious — one of the ankle-bones itself had been 
tom. Sam Bolton realised fully that it was advisa- 
ble to work with the utmost rapidity, before the 
young man should regain consciousness, in order 
that the reduction of the fracture might be made 
while the muscles were relaxed. Nevertheless, he 
took time both to settle his own ideas, and to explain 
them to the girl. It was the luckiest chance of Dick 
Herron’s life that he happened to be travelling 
with the one man who had assisted in the skilled 
treatment of such a case. Otherwise he would most 
certainly have been crippled. 

Sam first of all pried from the inner construction 
of the canoe two or three of the flat cedar strips 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN !S5 

used to reinforce the bottom. These he laid in sev- 
eral thicknesses to make a board of some strength. 
On the board he folded a blanket in wedge form, 
the thick end terminating abruptly three or four 
inches from the bottom. He laid aside several buck- 
skin thongs, and set May-may-gwan to ripping 
bandages of such articles of clothing as might suit. 

Then he bent the injured leg at the knee. May- 
may-gwan held it in that position, while Sam ma- 
nipulated the foot into what he judged to be the 
proper position. Especially did he turn the foot 
strongly inward that the inner ankle-bone might 
fall to its place. As to the final result he confessed 
himself almost painfully in doubt, but did the best 
he knew. He remembered the post-surgeon’s cun- 
ning comments, and tried to assure himself that the 
fractured ends of the bones met each other fairly, 
without the intervention of tendons or muscle-cover- 
ing, and that there was no obstruction to the move- 
ments of the ankle. When he had finished, his brow 
was wrinkled with anxiety, but he was satisfied that 
he had done to the limit of his knowledge. 

May-may-gwan now held the cedar board, with 
its pad, against the inside of the leg. Sam bound 


136 THE SILENT PLACES 

the thin end of the wedge-shaped blanket to the 
knee. Thus the thick end of the pad pressed 
against the calf just above the ankle, leaving the 
foot and the injured bone free of the board. Sam 
passed a broad buckskin thong about the ankle and 
foot in such a manner as to hold the foot from 
again turning out. Thus the fracture was fixed in 
place. The bandages were wound smoothly to hold 
everything secure. 

The two then, with the utmost precaution, car- 
ried their patient up the bank to a level space suita- 
ble for a camp, where he was laid as flat as possible. 
The main business was done, although still there 
remained certain cuts and contusions, especially that 
on the forehead, which had stunned him. 

After the reduction of the fracture, — which was 
actually consummated before Dick regained his 
consciousness, — and the carrying of the young man 
to the upper flat, Sam curtly instructed May-may- 
gwan to gather balsam for the dressing of the va- 
rious severer bruises. She obtained the gum, a lit- 
tle at a time, from a number of trees. Here and 
there, where the bark had cracked or been abraded, 
hard-skinned blisters had exuded. These, when 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 137 

pricked, yielded a liquid gum, potent in healing. 
While she was collecting this in a quickly fash- 
ioned birch-bark receptacle, Sam made camp. 

He realised fully that the affair was one of many 
weeks, if not of months. On the flat tongue over- 
looking the river he cleared a wide space, and with 
the back of his axe he knocked the hummocks flat. 
A score or so of sapling poles he trimmed. Three 
he tied together tripod-wise, using for the purpose 
a strip of the inner bark of cedar. The rest he 
leaned against these three. He postponed, until 
later, the stripping of birch-bark to cover this 
frame, and gave his attention to laying a soft couch 
for Dick’s convalescence. The foundation he made 
of caribou-moss, gathered dry from the heights; 
the top of balsam boughs cleverly thatched so that 
the ends curved down and in, away from the recum- 
bent body. Over all he laid what remained of his 
own half blanket. Above the bed he made a frame- 
work from which a sling would be hung to suspend 
the injured leg. 

All this consumed not over twenty minutes. At 
the end of that time he glanced up to meet Dick’s 


138 THE SILENT PLACES 

“Leg broke,” he answered the inquiry in them. 
“That’s all.” 

“That girl — ,” began Dick. 

“Shut up!” said Sam. 

He moved here and there, constructing, by means 
of flat stones, a trough to be used as a cooking- 
range. At the edge of the clearing he met the Ind- 
ian girl returning with her little birch-bark saucer. 

“Little Sister,” said he. 

She raised her eyes to him. 

“I want the truth.” 

“What truth. Little Father.?” 

He looked searchingly into her eyes. • 

“It does not matter ; I have it,” he replied. 

She did not ask him further. If she had any cu- 
riosity, she did not betray it ; if she had any suspi- 
cion of what he meant, she did not show it. 

Sam returned to where Dick lay. 

“Look here, Sam,” said he, “this comes of ^ 

“Shut up 1” said Sam again. “Look here, you, 
you’ve made trouble enough. Now you’re laid up, 
and you’re laid up for a good long while. This 
ain’t any ordinary leg break. It means three 
months, and it may mean that you’ll never walk 


139 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
straight again. It’s got to be treated mighty care- 
ful, and you’ve got to do just what I tell you. You 
just behave yourself. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. 
That girl had nothing to do with it. If you weren’t 
a great big fool you’d know it. We both got to take 
care of you. Now you treat her decent, and you 
treat me decent. It’s time you came off.” 

He said it as though he meant it. Nevertheless 
it was with the most elaborate tenderness that he, 
assisted by May-may-gwan, carried Dick to his new 
quarters. But in spite of the utmost care, the trans- 
portation was painful. The young man was left 
with no strength. The rest of the afternoon he 
dozed in a species of torpor. 

Sam’s energy toward permanent establishment 
did not relax. He took a long tramp in search of 
canoe birches, from which at last he brought back 
huge rolls of thick bark. These he and the girl 
sewed together in overlapping seams, using white 
spruce-roots for the purpose. The result was a 
water-tight covering for the wigwam. A pile of 
firewood was the fruit of two hours’ toil. In the 
meantime May-may-gwan had caught some fish 
with the hook and line and had gathered some her- 


140 THE SILENT PLACES 

ries. She made Dick a strong broth of dried meat. 
At evening the old man and the girl ate their meal 
together at the edge of the bluff overlooking the 
broil of the river. They said little, but somehow the 
meal was peaceful, with a content unknown in the 
presence of the impatient and terrible young man. 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 


During the days that ensued a certain intimacy 
sprang up between Sam Bolton and the Indian girl. 
At first their talk was brief and confined to the ne- 
cessities. Then matters of opinion, disjointed, 
fragmentary, began to creep in. Finally the two 
came to know each other, less by what was actually 
said, than by the attitude of mind such confidences 
presupposed. One topic they avoided. Sam, for 
all his shrewdness, could not determine to what de- 
gree had persisted the young man’s initial attrac- 
tion for the girl. Of her devotion there could be 
no question, but In how much it depended on the 
necessity of the moment lay the puzzle. Her de- 
meanor was inscrutable. Yet Sam came gradually 
to trust to her loyalty. 

In the soft, sweet open-air life the days passed 
stately in the manner of figures on an ancient tapes- 
try. Certain things were each morning to be done, 
^the dressing of Dick’s cuts and contusions with 
141 


142 THE SILENT PLACES 

the healing balsam, the rebandaging and adjusting 
of the splints and steadying buckskin strap ; the 
necessary cooking and cleaning; the cutting of 
wood ; the fishing below the rapids ; the tending of 
traps; the occasional hunting of larger game; the 
setting of snares for rabbits. From certain good 
skins of the latter May-may-gwan was engaged in 
weaving a blanket, braiding the long strips after a 
fashion of her own. She smoked tanned buckskin, 
and with it repaired thoroughly both the men’s gar- 
ments and her own. These things were to be done, 
though leisurely, and with slow, ruminative pauses 
for the dreaming of forest dreams. 

But inside the wigwam Dick Herron lay helpless, 
his hands clenched, his eyes glaring red with an 
impatience he seemed to hold his breath to repress. 
Time was to be passed. That was all he knew, all 
he thought about, alt he cared. He seized the min- 
utes grimly and flung them behind him. So ab- 
sorbed was he in this, that he seemed to give grudg- 
ingly and hastily his attention to anything else. 
He never spoke except when absolutely necessary; 
it almost seemed that he never moved. Of Sam he 
appeared utterly unconscious. The older man per- 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 143 

formed the little services about him quite unnoticed. 
The Indian girl Dick would not suffer near him at 
all. Twice he broke silence for what might be called 
commentatorial speech. 

“It’ll be October before we can get started,” he 
growled one evening. 

“Yes,” said Sam. 

“You wait till I can get out!” he said on another 
occasion, in vague threat of determination. 

At the beginning of the third week Sam took his 
seat by the moss and balsam pallet and began to fill 
his pipe in preparation for a serious talk. 

“Dick,” said he, “I’ve made up my mind we’ve 
wasted enough time here.” 

Herron made no reply. 

“I’m going to leave you here and go to look over 
the other hunting districts by myself.” 

Still no reply. 

“Well.?’ demanded Sam. 

“What about me.?” asked Dick. 

“The girl will take care of you.” 

A long silence ensued. “She’ll take everything 
we’ve got and get out,” said Dick at last. 

“She will not ! She’d have done it before now.” 


144 . 


THE SILENT PLACES 


“She’ll quit me the first Injuns that come 
along.” 

Sam abandoned the point. 

“You needn’t take the risk unless you want to. 
If you say so, I’ll wait.” 

“Oh, damn the risk,” cried Dick, promptly. 
“Go ahead.” 

The woodsman smoked. 

“Sam,” said the younger man. 

“What.?” 

“I know I’m hard to get along with just now. 
Don’t mind me. It’s hell to lie on your back and 
be able to do nothing. I’ve seemed to hinder 
the game from the first. Just wait till I’m up 
again !” 

“That’s all right, my boy,” replied Sam. “I un- 
derstand. Don’t worry. Just take it easy. I’ll 
look over the district, so we won’t be losing any 
time. And, Dick, be decent to the girl.” 

“To hell with the girl,” growled Dick, lapsing 
abruptly from his expansive mood. “She got me 
into this.” 

Not another word would he speak, but lay, star- 
ing upward, chewing the cud of resentment. 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 145 

Promptly on the heels of his decision Sam Bol- 
ton had a long talk with May-may-gwan, then de- 
parted carrying a little pack. It was useless to 
think now of the canoe, and in any case the time of 
year favoured cross-country travel. The distances, 
thus measured, were not excessive, and from the 
Indian’s descriptions, Sam’s slow-brooding memory 
had etched into his mind an accurate map of the 
country. 

At noon the girl brought Dick his meal. After 
he had eaten she removed the few utensils. Then 
she returned. 

“The Little Father commanded that I care for 
your hurt,” she said, simply. 

“My leg’s all right now,” growled Dick. “I can 
bandage it myself.” 

May-may-gwan did not reply, but left the tent. 
In a moment she reappeared carrying forked 
switches, a square of white birch-bark, and a piece 
of charcoal. 

“Thus it is,” said she rapidly. “These be the 
leg bones and this the bone of the ankle. This bor e 
is broken, so. Thus it is held in place by the skill 
the Little Father. Thus it is healing, with stiffness 


146 THE SILENT PLACES 

of the muscles and the gristle, so that always Eagle 
eye will w^alk like wood, and never will he run. 
The Little Father has told May-may-gwan what 
there is to do. It is now the time. Fifteen suns 
have gone since the hurt.” 

She spoke simply. Dick, interested in spite of 
himself, stared at the switches and the hasty char- 
coal sketch. The dead silence hung for a full min- 
ute. Then the young man fell back from his elbow 
with an enigmatical snort. May-may-gwan as- 
sumed consent and set to work on the simple yet del- 
icate manipulations, massages, and flexings, which, 
persisted in with due care lest the fracture slip, 
would ultimately restore the limb to its full useful- 
ness. 

Once a day she did this, thrice a day she brought 
food. The rest of the time she was busy about her 
own affairs; but never too occupied to loop up a 
section of the tepee covering for the purpose of 
admitting fresh air, to bring a cup of cold water, 
to readjust the sling which suspended the injured 
h or to perform an hundred other little services. 
She did these things with inscrutable demeanour. 
As Dick always accepted them in silence, she offered 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN U*l 

them equally in silence. No one could have guessed 
the thoughts that passed in her heart. 

At the end of a week Dick raised himself sud- 
denly on his elbow. 

“Some one is coming !” he exclaimed, in English. 

At the sound of his voice the girl started for- 
ward. Her mouth parted, her eyes sparkled, her 
nostrils quivered. Nothing could have been more 
pathetic than this sudden ecstatic delight, as sud- 
denly extinguished when she perceived that the ex- 
clamation was involuntary and not addressed to her. 
In a moment Sam Bolton appeared, striding out of 
the forest. 

He unslung his little pack, leaned his rifle against 
a tree, consigned to May-may-gwan a dog he was 
leading, and approached the wigwam. He seemed 
in high good humour. 

“Well, how goes it.^” he greeted. 

But at the sight of the man striding in his 
strength Dick’s dull anger had fallen on him again 
like a blanket. Unreasonably, as he himself well 
knew, he was irritated. Something held him back 
from the utterance of the hearty words of greeting 
that had been on his tongue. A dull, apathetic in- 


148 THE SILENT PLACES 

difference to everything except the chains of his 
imprisonment enveloped his spirit. 

“All right,” he answered, grudgingly. 

Sam deftly unwound the bandages, examining 
closely the condition of the foot. 

“Bone’s in place all right,” he commented. “Has 
the girl rubbed it and moved it every day.?” 

“Yes.” 

“Any pain to amount to anything now ?” 

“No.” 

“Pretty dull work lying on your back all day 
with nothing to do.” 

“Yes.” 

“Took in the country to southeast. Didn’i find 
anything. Picked up a pretty good dog. Part 
‘husky.’ ” 

Dick had no comment to make on this. Sam 
found May-may-gwan making friends with the 
dog, feeding him little scraps, patting his head, 
above all wrinkling tlie end of his pointed nose in 
one hand and batting it softly with the palm of the 
other. This caused the dog to sneeze violently, but 
he exhibited every symptom of enjoyment. The 
animal had long, coarse hair, sharp ears set alertly 



'^Listen, Little 


Sister,” said he. 
long journey 


Now I go on a 


» 





CHAPTER FOURTEEN 149 

forward, a bushy tail, and an expression of great 
but fierce intelligence. 

“Eagle-eye does well,” said the woodsman. 

“I have done as the Little Father commanded,” 
she replied, and arose to cook the meal. 

The next day Sam constructed a pair of crutches 
well padded with moss. 

“Listen, Little Sister,” said he. “Now I go on a 
long journey, perhaps fifteen suns, perhaps one 
moon. At the end of six suns more Jibibanisi may 
rise. His leg must be slung, thus. Never must he 
touch the foot to the ground, even for an instant. 
You must see to it. I will tell him, also. Each day 
he must sit in the sun. He must do something. 
When snow falls we will again take the long trail. 
Prepare all things for it. Give Eagle-eye mate- 
rials to work with.” 

To Dick he spoke with like directness. 

“I’m off again, Dick,” said he. “There’s no 
help for it ; you’ve got to lay up there for a week 
yet. Then the girl will show you how to tie your 
leg out of the way, and you can move on crutches. 
If you rest any weight on that foot before I get 
back, you’ll be stiff for life. I shouldn’t advise you 


150 


THE SILENT PLACES 
to take any chances. Suit yourself ; but I should 
try to do no more than get out in the sun. You 
won’t be good for much before snow. You can get 
things organised. She’ll bring you the stuff to 
work on, and will help. So long.” 

“Good-by,” muttered Dick. He breathed hard, 
fully occupied with the thought of his helplessness, 
with blind, unappeasable rage against the chance 
that had crippled him, with bitter and useless ques- 
tionings as to why such a moment should have been 
selected for the one accident of his young life. Out- 
side he could hear the crackle of the little fire, the 
unusual sound of the Indian girl’s voice as she 
talked low to the dog, the animal’s whine of appre- 
ciation and content. Suddenly he felt the need of 
companionship, the weariness of his own unending, 
revolving thoughts. 

“Hi!” he called aloud. 

May-may-gwan almost Instantly appeared in the 
entrance, a scarcely concealed hope shining in her 
eyes. This was the first time she had been sum- 
moned. 

“Ninny -moosh — the dog,” commanded Dick, 
coldly. 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 151 

She turned to whistle the beast. He came at once, 
already friends with this human being, who under- 
stood him. 

“Come here, old fellow,” coaxed Dick, holding 
out his hand. 

But the half-wild animal was in doubt. He re- 
quired assurance of this man’s intentions. Dick 
gave himself to the task of supplying it. For the 
first time in a month his face cleared of its discon- 
tent. The old, winning boyishness returned. May- 
may-gwan, standing forgotten, in the entrance, 
watched in silence. Dick coaxed knowingly, lead- 
ing, by the very force of persuasion, until the dog 
finally permitted a single pat of his sharp nose. 
The young man smoothly and cautiously persisted, 
his face alight with interest. Finally he conquered. 
The animal allowed his ears to be rubbed, his nose 
to be batted. At length, well content, he lay down 
by his new master within reach of the hand that 
rested caressingly on his head. The Indian girl 
stole softly away. At the fireside she seated herself 
and gazed in the coals. Presently the mar\’^el of 
two tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them 
away and set about supper. 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 


Whether it was that the prospect of getting about, 
or the diversion of the dog was responsible for the 
change, Dick’s cheerfulness markedly increased in 
the next few days. For hours he would fool with 
the animal, whom he had named Billy, after a hunt- 
ing companion, teaching him to shake hands, to 
speak, to wrinkle his nose in a doggy grin, to lie 
down at command, and all the other tricks useful 
and ornamental that go to make up the fanciest 
kind of a dog education. The mistakes and suc- 
cesses of his new friend seemed to amuse him hugely. 
Often from the tent burst the sounds of inextin- 
guishable mirth. May-may-gwan, peeping, saw the 
young man as she had first seen him, clear-eyed, 
laughing, the wrinkles of humour deepening about 
his eyes, his white teeth flashing, his brow un- 
troubled. Three days she hovered thus on the outer 
edge of the renewed good feeling, then timidly es- 
sayed an advance. 


152 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 


153 


Unobtrusive, she slipped inside the teepee’s flap. 
The dog sat on his haunches, his head to one side in 
expectation. 

“The dog is a good dog,” she said, her breath 
choking her. 

Apparently the young man had not heard. 

“It will be well to name the dog that he may 
answer to his name,” she ventured again. 

Dick, abruptly gripped by the incomprehensible 
obsession, uneasy as at something of which he only 
waited the passing, resentful because of the discom- 
fort this caused him, unable to break through the 
artiflcial restraint that enveloped his spirit, lifted 
his eyes suddenly, dead and lifeless, to hers. 

“It is time to lift the net,” he said. 

The girl made no more advances. She moved 
almost automatically about her accustomed tasks, 
preparing the materials for what remained to be 
done. 

Promptly on the seventh day, with much prep- 
aration and precaution, Dick moved. He had now 
to suffer the girl’s assistance. When he first stood, 
upright, he was at once attacked by a severe diz- 
ziness, which would have caused a fall had not May- 


154 THE SILENT PLACES 

may-gwan steadied him. With difficulty he hob- 
bled to a seat outside. Even his arms seemed to 
him pithless. He sank to his place hard-breathed, 
exhausted. It was some minutes before he could 
look about him calmly. 

The first object to catch his eye was the cardinal 
red of a moose-maple, like a spot of blood on velvet- 
green. And thus he knew that September, or the 
Many-caribou-in-the-woods Moon, was close at 
hand. 

“Hi!” he called. 

May-may-gwan came as before, but without the 
look of expectation in her eyes. 

“Bring me wood of mashkigiwateg, wood of tam- 
arack,” he commanded; “bring me mokamon, the 
knife, and tschi-mokamon, the large knife; bring 
the hide of ah-tek, the caribou.” 

“These things are ready, at hand,” she replied. 

With the couteau croche, the crooked knife of 
the North, Dick laboured slowly, fashioning with 
care the long tamarack strips. He was exceedingly 
particular as to the selection of the wood, as to the 
taper of the pieces. At last one was finished to his 
satisfaction. Slowly then he fashioned it, mould- 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 155 

mg the green wood, steaming it to make it more 
plastic, until at last the ends lay side by side, and 
the loop of wood bowed above in the shape of a 
snow-shoe raquette. The exact shape Dick still fur- 
ther assured by means of two cross-pieces. These 
were bound in place by the strips of the caribou-skin 
rawhide wet in warm water, which was also used to 
bind together the two ends. The whole was then 
laid aside to dry. 

Thus in the next few days Dick fashioned the 
frame of six snow-shoes. He adhered closely to the 
O jibway pattern. In these woods it was not neces- 
sary to have recourse to the round, broad shape of 
the rough bowlder-hills, nor was it possible to use 
the long, swift shoe of the open plains. After a 
while he heated red the steel end of his rifle cleaning- 
rod and bored holes for the webbing. This also he 
made of caribou rawhide, for caribou shrinks when 
wet, thus tightening the lacing where other mate- 
rials would stretch. Above and below the cross- 
pieces he put in a very fine weaving ; between them 
a coarser, that the loose snow might readily sift 
through. Each strand he tested again a^" again ; 
each knot he made doubly sure. 


156 THE SILENT PLACES 

Nor must it be imagined that he did these things 
alone. May-may-gwan helped him, not only by 
fetching for him the tools and materials, of which 
he stood in need, but also in the bending, binding, 
and webbing itself. Under the soft light of the 
trees, bathed in the aroma of fresh shavings and the 
hundred natural odours of the forest, it was ex- 
ceedingly pleasant accurately to accomplish the 
light skilled labour. But between these human be- 
ings, alone in a vast wilderness, was no communi- 
cation outside the necessities of the moment. Thus 
in a little the three pairs of snow-shoes, complete 
even to the buckskin foot-loops, hung from the 
sheltered branch of a spruce. 

“Bring now to me,” said the young man, “poles 
of the hickory, logs of gijik, the cedar; bring me 
wigwass, the birch-bark, and the rawhide of moos- 
wa, the moose.” 

“These things are at hand,” repeated May-may- 
gwan. 

Then ensued days of severe toil. Dick was, of 
course, unable to handle the axe, so the girl had to 
do it under his direction. The affair was of wedges 
with which to split along the grain ; of repeated at- 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 157 

tempts until the resulting strips were true and with- 
out warp; of steaming and tying to the proper 
curve, and, finally, of binding together strongly 
with the tough habiclie into the shape of the dog- 
sledge. This, too, was suspended at last beneath 
the sheltering spruce. 

“Bring me now,” said Dick, “rawhide of mooswa, 
the moose, rawhide of ah-tek, the caribou, watab, 
the root for sewing.” 

Seated opposite each other, heads bent over the 
task, they made the dog-harness, strong, serviceable, 
not to be worn out, with the collar, the broad buck- 
skin strap over the back, the heavy traces. Four of 
them they made, for Sam would undoubtedly com- 
plete the team, and these, too, they hung out of 
reach in the spruce-tree. 

Now Sam returned from his longest trip, empty 
of information, but light of spirit, for he had suc- 
ceeded by his simple shrewdness in avoiding all sus- 
picion. He brought with him another “husky” 
dog, and a strong animal like a Newfoundland; 
also some tea and tobacco, and an axe-blade. This 
latter would be especially valuable. In the extreme 
cold steel becomes like glass. The work done earned 


158 THE SILENT PLACES 

his approval, but he paused only a day, and was off 

again. 

From the inside of the teepee hung many skins 
of the northern hare which May-may-gwan had 
captured and tanned while Dick was still on his 
back. The woven blanket was finished. Now she 
lined the woollen blankets with these hare-skins, 
over an hundred to each. Nothing warmer could 
be imagined. Of caribou skin, tanned with the hair 
on, she and Dick fashioned jackets with peaked 
hoods, which, when not in use, would hang down 
behind. The opening about the face was sewn with 
bushy fox’s tails, and a puckering-string threaded 
through so that the wearer could completely pro- 
tect his features. Mittens they made from pelts of 
the muskrat. Moccasins were cut extra large and 
high, and lined with fur of the hare. Heavy raw- 
hide dog-whips and buckskin gun-cases completed 
the simple winter outfit. 

But still there remained the question of suste- 
nance. Game would be scarce and uncertain in the 
cold months. 

It was now seven weeks since Dick’s accident. 
Cautiously, with many pauses, he began to rest 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 159 

weight on the injured foot. Thanks to the treat- 
ment of massage and manipulation, the joint was 
but little stiffened. Each day it gained in strength. 
Shortly Dick was able to hobble some little distance, 
always with the aid of a staff, always heedfully. 
As yet he was far from the enjoyment of full free- 
dom of movement, but by expenditure of time and 
perseverance he was able to hunt in a slow, patient 
manner. The runways where the caribou came to 
drink late in the evening, a cautious float down- 
stream as far as the first rapids, or even a plain 
sitting on a log in the hope that game would chance 
to feed within range — these methods persisted in 
day after day brought in a fair quantity of 
meat. 

Of the meat they made some jerky for present 
consumption by the dogs, and, of course, they ate 
fresh as much as they needed. But most went into 
pemmican. The fat was all cut away, the lean 
sliced thin and dried in the sun. The result they 
pounded fine, and mixed with melted fat and the 
marrow, which, in turn, was compressed while warm 
into air-tight little bags. A quantity of meat went 
into surprisingly little pemmican. The bags were 


160 THE SILENT PLACES 

piled on a long-legged scaffolding out of the reach 

of the dogs and wild animals. 

The new husky and Billy had promptly come to 
teeth, but Billy had held' his own, much to Dick 
Herron’s satisfaction. The larger animal was a 
bitch, so now all dwelt together in amity. During 
the still hunt they were kept tied in camp, but the 
rest of the time they prowled about. Never, how- 
ever, were they permitted to leave the clearing, for 
that would frighten the game. At evening they sat 
in an expectant row, awaiting the orderly distribu- 
tion of their evening meal. Somehow they added 
much to the man-feel of the camp. With their 
coming the atmosphere of men as opposed to the 
atmosphere of the wilderness had strengthened. On 
this side was the human habitation, busy at its own 
affairs, creating about itself a definite something 
in the forest, unknown before, preparing quietly 
and efficiently its weapons of offence and defence, 
all complete in its fires and shelters and industries 
and domestic animals. On the other, formidable, 
mysterious, vast, were slowly crystallising, without 
disturbance, without display, the mighty opposing 
forces. In the clarified air of the first autumn 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN l6l 

frosts this antagonism seemed fairly to saturate the 
stately moving days. It was as yet only potential, 
but the potentialities were swelling, ever swelling 
toward the break of an actual conflict. 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 


Now the leaves ripened and fell, and the frost 
crisped them. Suddenly the forest was still. The 
great, brooding silence, composed of a thousand 
lesser woods voices, flowed away like a vapour to be 
succeeded by a fragile, deathly suspension of sound. 
Dead leaves depended motionless from the trees. 
The air hung inert. A soft sunlight lay enervated 
across the world. 

In the silence had been a vast, holy mystery of 
greater purpose and life ; in the stillness was a men- 
ace. It became the instant of poise before the break 
of something gigantic. 

And always across it were rising strange rust- 
lings that might mean great things or little, but 
whose significance was always in doubt. Suddenly 
the man watching by the runway would hear a 
mighty scurrjdng of dead leaves, a scampering, a 
tumult of hurrying noises, the abruptness of whose 
inception tightened his nerves and set galloping his 
162 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 163 

heart. Then, with equal abruptness, they ceased. 
The delicate and fragile stillness settled down. 

In all the forest thus diverse affairs seemed to be 
carried on — fearfully, in sudden, noisy dashes, as 
a man under fire would dodge from one cover to an- 
other. Every creature advertised in the leaves hia 
presence. Danger lurked to this, its advantage. 
Even the man, taking his necessary footsteps, was 
abashed at the disproportionate and unusual effects 
of his movements. It was as though a retiring nat- 
ure were to be accompanied at every step through 
a crowded drawing-room by the jingling of bells. 
Always the instinct was to pause in order that the 
row might die away, that the man might shrink to 
his accustomed unobtrusiveness. And instanta- 
neously, without the grace of even a little transit- 
ional echo, the stillness fell, crowding so closely on 
the heels of the man’s presence that almost he could 
feel the breath of whatever it represented. 

Occasionally two red squirrels would descend 
from the spruce-trees to chase each other madly. 
Then, indeed, did the spirit of autumn seem to be 
outraged. The racket came to be an insult. Al- 
ways the ear expected its discontinuance, until 


164 THE SILENT PLACES 

finally the persistence ground on the nerves like the 
barking of a dog at night. At last it was an in- 
decency, an orgy of unholy revel, a profanation, a 
provocative to anger of the inscrutable woods god. 
Then stillness again with the abruptness of a sword- 
cut. 

Always the forest seemed to be the same ; and yet 
somehow in a manner not to be defined a subtle 
change was taking place in the wilderness. Noth- 
ing definite could be instanced. Each morning of 
that Indian summer the skies were as soft, the sun 
as grateful, the leaves as gorgeous in their blazon- 
ment, yet each morning an infinitesimal something 
that had been there the day before was lacking, 
and for it an infinitesimal something had been 
substituted. The change from hour to hour was 
not perceptible; from week to week it was. The 
stillness grew in portent ; the forest creatures moved 
more furtively. Like growth, rather than chem- 
ical change, the wilderness was turning to iron. 
With this hardening it became more formidable 
and menacing. No longer aloof in nirvanic calm, 
awakened it drew near its enemies, alert, cunning, 
circumspect, ready to strike. 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 165 

Each morning a thin film of ice was to be seen 
along the edges of the slack water. Heavy, black 
frosts whitened the shadows and nipped the unac- 
customed fingers early in the day. The sun was 
swinging to the south, lengthening the night hours. 
Whitefish were running in the river. 

These last the man and the girl caught in great 
numbers, and smoked and piled on long-legged scaf- 
folds. They were intended as wdnter food for the 
dogs, and would constitute a great part of what 
would be taken along when the journey should 
commence. 

Dick began to walk without his crutches, a very 
little at a time, grimly, all his old objectless anger 
returned when the extent of his disability was thus 
brought home to him. But always with persistence 
came improvement. Each attempt brought its re- 
ward in strengthened muscles, freer joints, greater 
confidence. At last it could be no longer doubted 
that by the Indian’s Whitefish Moon he would be as 
good as ever. The discovery, by some queer con- 
trariness of the man’s disposition, was avoided as 
long as possible, and finally but grudgingly ad- 
mitted. Yet when at last Dick confessed to him- 


l66 THE SILENT PLACES 

self that his complete recovery was come, his mood 
suddenly changed. The old necessity for blind, 
unreasoning patience seemed at an end. He could 
perceive light ahead, and so in the absence of any 
further need for taut spiritual nerves, he relaxed 
the strain and strode on more easily. He played 
more with the dogs — of which still his favourite was 
Billy; occasionally he burst into little snatches of 
song, and the sound of his whistling was merry in 
the air. At length he paused abruptly in his work 
to fix his quizzical, narrow gaze on the Indian 
girl. 

“Come, Little Sister,” said he, “let us lift the 
nets.” 

She looked up at him, a warm glow leaping to 
her face. This was the first time he had addressed 
her by the customary diminutive of friendship since 
they had both been members of the Indian camp on 
the Missinaibie. 

They lifted the net together, and half-filled the 
canoe with the shining fish. Dick bore himself with 
the careless good humour of his earlier manner. 
The greater part of the time he seemed unconscious 
of his companion’s presence, but genuinely uncon- 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN l67 

sclous, not with the deliberate affront of a pretend- 
ed indifference. Under even this negative good 
treatment the girl expanded with an almost luxu- 
riant gratitude. Her face lost its stoical mask of 
imperturbability, and much of her former arch 
beauty returned. The young man was blind to these 
things, for he was in reality profoundly indifferent 
to the girl, and his abrupt change of manner could 
in no way be ascribed to any change in his feeling 
for her. It was merely the reflex of his inner mood, 
and that sprang solely from joy over the permis- 
sion he had given himself again to contemplate tak- 
ing the Long Trail. 

But Sam Bolton, returning that very day from 
his own long journey, siaw at once the alteration in 
May-may-gwan, and was troubled over it. He 
came into camp by the river way where the moss 
and spruce-needles silenced his footsteps, so he 
approached unnoticed. The girl bent over the 
fire. A strong glow from the flames showed 
the stronger glow illuminating her face from 
within. She hummed softly a song of the Ojibway 
language : 


<68 


THE SILENT PLACES 
** Mong-o doog-win 

Nin dinaindoon ” 

Loons rving I thought it was 
In the distance shining. 

But it was my lover s paddle 
In the distance shining.** 

Then she looked up and saw him. 

“Little Father!” she cried, pleased. 

At the same moment Dick caught sight of the 
new-comer and hobbled out of the wigwam. 

“Hello, you old snoozer!” he shouted. “We be- 
gan to think you weren’t going to show up at all. 
Look at what we’ve done. I believe you’ve been 
lying out in the woods just to dodge work. 
Where’d you steal that dog.?” 

“Hello, Dick,” replied Sam, unslinging his 
pack. “I’m tired. TeU her to rustle grub.” 

He leaned back against a cedar, half-closing his 
eyes, but nevertheless keenly alert. The changed 
atmosphere of the camp disturbed him. Although 
he had not realised it before, he preferred Dick’s old 
uncompromising sulkiness. 

In accordance with the woods custom, little was 
said until after the meal was finished and the pipes 
lit. Then Dick inquired : 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 169 

“Well, where you been this time, and what did 
you find?” 

Sam replied briefly as to his journey, making it 
clear that he had now covered all the hunting dis- 
tricts of this region with the single exception of one 
beyond the Kenogami. He had discovered noth- 
ing ; he was absolutely sure that nothing was to be 
discovered. 

“I didn’t go entirely by what the Injuns told 
me,” he said, “but I looked at the signs along the 
trapping routes and the trapping camps to see how 
many had been at it, and I’m sure the number tal- 
lies with the reg’lar Injun hunters. I picked up 
that dog over to Leftfoot Lake. Come here, pup !” 

The animal slouched forward, his head hanging, 
the rims of his eyes blood red as he turned them up 
to his master. He was a powerful beast, black and 
tan, with a quaintly wrinkled, anxious countenance 
and long, pendent ears. 

“Strong,” commented Dick, “but queer-looking, 
lie’ll have trouble keeping warm with that short 
coat.” 

“He’s wintered here already,” replied Sam, in- 
diH'erently. “Go lie down !” 


170 THE SILENT PLACES 

The dog slouched slowly back, his heavy head 
and ears swinging to each step, to where May- 
may-gwan was keeping his peace with the other 
animals. 

“Now for that Kenogami country,” went on 
Sam; “it’s two weeks from here by dogs, and it’s 
our last chance in this country. I ain’t dared ask too 
many questions, of course, so I don’t know anything 
about the men who’re hunting there. There’s four 
families, and one other. He’s alone; I got that 
much out of the last place I stopped. We got to 
wait here for snow. If we don’t raise anything 
there, we’d better get over toward the Nipissing 
country.” 

“All right,” said Dick. 

The older man began to ask minutely concerning 
the equipment, provisions, and dog food. 

“It’s all right as long as we can take it easy and 
hunt,” advised Sam, gradually approaching the 
subject that was really troubling him, “and it’s all 
right if we can surprise this Jingoss or ambush him 
when we find him. But suppose he catches wind of 
us and skips, what then? It’ll be a mighty pretty 
race, my son, and a hard one. We’ll have to fly 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 17i 

light and hard, and we’ll need every pound of grub 
we can scrape.” 

The young man’s eyes darkened and his nostrils 
expanded with the excitement of this thought. 

“Just let’s strike his trail !” he exclaimed. 

“That’s all right,” agreed the woodsman, his 
eyes narrowing; “but how about the girl, then.?^” 

But Dick exhibited no uneasiness. He merely 
grinned broadly. 

“Well, what about the girl.? That’s what I’ve 
been telling you. Strikes me that’s one of your 
troubles.” 

Half-satisfied, the veteran fell silent. Shortly 
after he made an opportunity to speak to May- 
may-gwan. 

“All is well. Little Sister?” he inquired. 

“All is well,” she replied; “we have finished the 
parkas, the sledges, the snow-shoes, the blankets, 
and we have made much food.” 

“And Jibiwanisi?” 

“His foot is nearly healed. Yesterday he walked 
to the Big Pool and back. To-day, even this after- 
noon, Little Father, the Black Spirit left him so . 
that he has been gay.” 


m THE SILENT PLACES 

Convinced that the restored good feeling was the 
result rather of Dick’s volatile nature than of too 
good an understanding, the old man left the sub- 
ject. 

“Little Sister,” he went on, “soon we are going 
to take the winter trail. It may be that we will have 
to travel rapidly. It may be that food will be 
scarce. I think it best that you do not go with us.” 

She looked up at him. 

“These words I have expected,” she replied. “I 
have heard the speech you have made with the O j ib- 
way men you have met. I have seen the prepara- 
tions you have made. I am not deceived. You and 
Jibiwanisi are not looking for winter posts. I do 
not know what it is you are after, but it is some- 
thing you wish to conceal. Since you have not told 
me, I know you wish to conceal it from me. I did 
not know all this when I left Haukemah and his 
people. That was a foolish thing. It was done, 
and I do not know why. But it was done, and it 
cannot be undone. I could not go back to the peo- 
ple of Haukemah now ; they would kill me. Where 
else can I go.?^ I do not know where the Ojibways, 
my own people, live.” 


173 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 

“What do you expect to do, if you stay with 
me?” inquired Sam, curiously. 

“You come from Conjuror’s House. You tell 
the Indians you come from Winnipeg, but that is 
not so. When you have finished your affairs, you 
will return to Conjuror’s House. There I can enter 
the household of some officer.” 

“But you cannot take the winter trail,” objected 
Sam. 

“I am strong ; I can take the winter trail.” 

“And perhaps we may have to journey hard and 
fast.” 

“As when one pursues an enemy,” said the girl, 
calmly. “Good. I am fleet. I too can travel. 
And if it comes to that, I will leave you without 
complaint when I can no longer tread your trail.” 

“But the food,” objected Sam, still further. 

“Consider, Little Father,” said May-may-gwan ; 
“of the food I have prepared much ; of the work, I 
have done much. I have tended the traps, raised 
the nets, fashioned many things, attended Eagle- 
eye. If I had not been here, then you. Little 
Father, could not have made your journeys. So 
you I*ave gained some time.” 


THE SILENT PLACES 


i74 

“That is true,” conceded Sam. 

“Listen, Little Father, take me with you. I wilJ 
drive the dogs, make the camp, cook the food. 
Never will I complain. If the food gets scarce, 1 
will not ask for my share. That I promise.” 

“Much of what you say is true,” assented the 
woodsman, “but you forget you came to us of your 
free will and un welcomed. It would be better that 
you go to Missinaibie.” 

“No,” replied the girl. 

“If you hope to become the squaw of Jibiwanisi,” 
said Sam, bluntly, “you may as well give it up.” 

The girl said nothing, but compressed her lips 
to a straight line. After a moment she merely 
reiterated her original solution: 

“At Conjuror’s House I know the people.” 

“I will think of it,” then concluded Sam. 

Dick, however, could see no good in such an ar- 
rangement. He did not care to discuss the matter 
at length, but preserved rather the attitude of a 
man who has shaken himself free of all the respon- 
sibility of an affair, and is mildly amused at the 
tribulations of another still involved in it. 

“You’ll have a lot of trouble dragging a squaw 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 175 

all over the north,” he advised Sam, critically. “Of 
course, we can’t turn her adrift here. Wouldn’t do 
that to a dog. But it strikes me it would even pay 
us to go out of our way to Missinaibie to get rid of 
her. We could do that.” 

“Well, I don’t know — ” doubted Sam. “Of 
course ” 

“Oh, bring her along if you want to,” laughed 
Dick, “only it’s your funeral. You’ll get into 
trouble, sure. And don’t say I didn’t tell you.” 

It might have been imagined by the respective 
attitudes of the two men that actually Sam had 
been responsible for the affair from the beginning. 
Finally, laboriously, he decided that the girl should 
go. She could be of assistance; there was small 
likelihood of the necessity for protracted hasty 
travel. 

The weather was getting steadily colder. 
Greasy-looking clouds drove down from the north- 
west. Heavy winds swept by. The days turned 
gray. Under the shelter of trees the ground froze 
into hummocks, which did not thaw out. The crisp 
leaves which had made the forest so noisy disinte- 
grated into sodden silence. A wildness was in the 


176 THE SILENT PLACES 

air, swooping down with the breeze, buffeting in 
the little whirlwinds and eddies, rocking back and 
forth in the tops of the storm-beaten trees. Cold 
little waves lapped against the thin fringe of shore 
ice that crept day by day from the banks. The 
water itself turned black. Strange birds swirling 
down wind like leaves uttered weird notes of mi- 
gration. The wilderness hardened to steel. 

The inmates of the little camp waited. Each 
morning Dick was early afoot searching the signs 
of the weather ; examining the ice that crept 
stealthily from shore, waiting to pounce upon and 
imprison the stream ; speculating on the chances of 
an early season. The frost pinched his bare fingers 
severely, but he did not mind that. His leg was by 
now almost as strong as ever, and he was impatient 
to be away, to leave behind him this rapid that had 
gained over him even a temporary victory. Always 
as the time approached, his spirits rose. It would 
have been difficult to identify this laughing boy 
with the sullen and terrible man who had sulked 
through the summer. He had made friends with all 
the dogs. Even the fierce “huskies” had become 
tame, and liked to be upset and tousled about and 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 177 

dragged on their backs growling fierce but mock 
protest. The bitch he had named Claire ; the hound 
with the long ears he had called Mack, because of a 
fancied and mournful likeness to MacDonald, the 
Chief Trader ; the other “husky” he had christened 
Wolf, for obvious reasons; and there remained, of 
course, the original Billy. Dick took charge of the 
feeding. At first he needed his short, heavy whip 
to preserve order, but shortly his really admirable 
gift with animals gained way, and he had them 
sitting peacefully in a row awaiting each his 
turn. 

At last the skim ice made it impossible longer to 
use the canoe in fishing on the river. The craft 
was, therefore, suspended bottom up between two 
trees. A little snow fell and remained, but was 
speedily swept into hollows. The temperature 
lowered. It became necessary to assume thicker 
garments. Once having bridged the river the ice 
strengthened rapidly. And then late one after- 
noon, on the wings of the northwest wind, came the 
snow. All night it howled past the trembling wig- 
wam. All the next day it swirled and drifted and 
took the shapes of fantastic monsters leaping in the 


178 THE SILENT PLACES 

riot of the storm. Then the stars, cold and brilliant, 
once more crackled in the heavens. The wilderness 
in a single twenty-four hours had changed utterly. 
Winter had come., 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 


In the starlit, bitter cold of a north country morn- 
ing the three packed their sledge and harnessed 
their dogs. The rawhide was stubborn with the 
frost, the dogs uneasy. Knots would not tie. Pain 
nipped the fingers, cruel pain that ate in and in un- 
til it had exposed to the shock of little contacts every 
tightened nerve. Each stiff, clumsy movement was 
agony. From time to time one of the three thrust 
hand in mitten to beat the freezing back. Then a 
new red torture surged to the very finger-tips. They 
bore it in silence, working hastily, knowing that 
every morning of the long, winter trip this fearful 
hour must come. Thus each day the North would 
greet them, squeezing their fingers in the cruel 
hand-clasp of an antagonist testing their strength. 

Over the supplies and blankets was drawn the 
skin envelope laced to the sledge. The last reluc- 
tant knot was tied. Billy, the leader of the four 
dogs, casting an intelligent eye at his masters, knew 
179 


180 THE SILENT PLACES 

that all was ready, and so arose from his haunches. 
Dick twisted his feet skilfully into the loops of his 
snow-shoes. Sam, already equipped, seized the 
heavy dog-whip. The girl took charge of the gee- 
pole with which the sledge would be guided. 

“Mush ! Mush on !” shouted Sam. 

The four dogs leaned into their collars. The 
sledge creaked free of its frost anchorage and 
moved. 

First it became necessary to drop from the eleva- 
tion to the river-bed. Dick and May-may-gwan 
clung desperately. Sam exercised his utmost skill 
and agility to keep the dogs straight. The tobog- 
gan hovered an instant over the edge of the bank, 
then plunged, coasting down. Men hung back, 
dogs ran to keep ahead. A smother of light 
snow settled to show, in the dim starlight, the 
furrow of descent. And on the broad, white 
surface of the river were eight spots of black 
which represented the followers of the Long 
Trail. 

Dick shook himself and stepped ahead of the 
dogs. 

“Mush ! Mush on !” commanded Sam again. 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 181 

Dick ran on steadily in the soft snow, swing- 
ing his entire weight now on one foot, now on 
the other, passing the snow-shoes with the peculiar 
stiff swing of the ankle, throwing his heel strongly 
downward at each step in order to take advantage 
of the long snow-shoe tails’ elasticity. At each step 
he sank deep into the feathery snow. The runner 
was forced to lift the toe of the shoe sharply, and 
the snow swirled past his ankles like foam. Behind 
him, in the trail thus broken and packed for them, 
trotted the dogs, their noses low, their jaws hang- 
ing. Sam drove with two long-lashed whips; and 
May-may-gwan, clinging to the gee-pole, guided 
the sledge. 

In the absolute and dead stillness of a winter 
morning before the dawn the little train went like 
ghosts in a mist of starlight. The strange glim- 
mering that seems at such an hour to disengage 
from the snow itself served merely to establish the 
separate bulks of that which moved across it. The 
bending figure of the man breaking trail, his head 
low, his body moving in its swing with the regu- 
larity of a pendulum ; the four wolf-like dogs, also 
bending easily to what was not a great labour, the 


182 THE SILENT PLACES 

line of their open jaws and lolling tongues cut out 
against the snow; another human figure; the low, 
dark mass of the sledge ; and again the bending fig- 
ure at the rear, — all these contrasted in their half- 
blurred uncertainty of outline and the suggested 
motion of their attitude with the straight, clear sil- 
houette of the spruce-trees against the sky. 

Also the sounds of their travelling offered an 
analogous contrast. The dull crunchy crunchy 
crunch of the snow-shoes, the breathing of the liv- 
ing beings, the glither and creak of the sledge came 
to the ear blurred and confused ; utterly unlike the 
cameo stillness of the winter dawn. 

Ten minutes of the really violent exertion of 
breaking trail warmed Dick through. His fingers 
ceased their protest. Each breath, blowing to steam, 
turned almost immediately to frost. He threw back 
the hood of his capote, for he knew that should it 
become wet from the moisture of his breath, it would 
freeze his skin, and with his violent exertions ex- 
posure to the air was nothing. In a short time his 
eyebrows and eyelashes became heavy with ice. 
Then slowly the moisture of his body, working out- 
ward through the wool of his clothing, frosted on 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 183 

the surface, so that gradually as time went on he 
grew to look more and more like a great white- 
furred animal. 

The driving here on the open river was compara- 
tively easy. Except occasionally, the straight line 
could be adhered to. When it became necessary to 
avoid an obstruction, Sam gave the command loud- 
ly, addressing Billy as the lead dog. 

“Hu, Billy !” he would cry. 

And promptly Billy would turn to the right. 
Or: 

“Chac, Billy !” he would cry. 

And Billy would turn to the left, with always in 
mind the thought of the long whip to recall his 
duty to man. 

Then the other dogs turned after him. Claire, 
for her steadiness and sense, had been made sledge- 
dog. Always she watched sagaciously to pull the 
end of the sledge strongly away should the devia- 
tion not prove sufficient. Later, in the woods, when 
the trail should become difficult, much would depend 
on Claire’s good sense. 

Now shortly, far to the south, the sun rose. The 
gray world at once became brilliant. The low frost 


184 THE SILENT PLACES 

haze, — invisible until now, to be invisible all the rest 
of the day, — for these few moments of the level 
beams worked strange necromancies. The prisms 
of a million ice-drops on shrubs and trees took fire. 
A bewildering flash and gleam of jewels caught the 
eye in every direction. And, suspended in the air, 
like the shimmer of a soft and delicate veiling, wav- 
ered and floated a mist of vapour, tinted with rose 
and lilac, with amethyst and saffron. 

As always on the Long Trail, our travellers’ spir- 
its rose with the sun. Dick lengthened his stride, 
the dogs leaned to their collars, Sam threw back his 
shoulders, the girl swung the sledge tail with added 
vim. Now everything was warm and bright and 
beautiful. It was yet too early in the day for 
fatigue, and the first discomforts had passed. 

But in a few moments Dick stopped. The sledge 
at once came to a halt. They rested. 

At the end of ten minutes Sam stepped to the 
front, and Dick took the dog- whip. The young 
man’s muscles, still weak from their long inaction, 
ached cruelly. Especially was this true of the liga- 
ments at the groin — used in lifting high the knee, 
• — and the long muscles along the front of the shin- 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 185 

bone, — by which the toe of the snow-shoe was ele- 
vated. He found himself very glad to drop behind 
into the beaten trail. 

The sun by now had climbed well above the hori- 
zon, but did little to mitigate the cold. As long as 
the violent movement was maintained a warm and 
grateful glow followed the circulation, but a pause, 
even of a few moments, brought the shivers. And 
always the feathery, clogging snow, — offering 
slight resistance, it is true, but opposing that slight 
resistance continuously, so that at last it amounted 
to a great deal. A step taken meant no advance 
toward easier steps. The treadmill of forest travel, 
changed only in outward form, again claimed their 
dogged patience. 

At noon they paused in the shelter of the woods. 
The dogs were anchored by the simple expedient of 
turning the sledge on its side. A little fire of dried 
spruce and pine branches speedily melted snow in 
the kettle, and that as speedily boiled tea. Caribou 
steak, thawed, then cooked over the blaze, com- 
pleted the meal. As soon as it was swallowed they 
were off again before the cold could mount them. 

The inspiration and uplift of the morning were 


186 THE SILENT PLACES 

gone ; the sun was sinking to a colder and colder set- 
ting. All the vital forces of the world were running 
down. A lethargy seized our travellers. An effort 
was required merely to contemplate treading the 
mill during the three remaining hours of daylight, 
a greater effort to accomplish the first step of it, 
and an infinite series of ever-increasing efforts to 
make the successive steps of that long afternoon. 
The mind became weary. And now the North in- 
creased by ever so little the pressure against them, 
sharpening the cold by a trifle ; adding a few flakes’ 
weight to the snow they must lift on their shoes; 
throwing into the vista before them a deeper, chill- 
ier tone of gray discouragement; intensifying the 
loneliness ; giving to the winds of desolation a voice. 
Well the great antagonist knew she could not thus 
stop these men, but so, little by little, she ground 
them down, wore away the excess of their vitality, 
reduced them to grim plodding, so that at the mo- 
ment she would hold them weakened to her pur- 
poses. They made no sign, for they were of the 
great men of the earth, but they bent to the fa- 
miliar touch of many little fingers pushing 
them back. 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 187 

Now the sun did indeed swing to the horizon, so 
that there remained scant daylight. 

“Chac, Billy !” cried Sam, who again wielded the 
whip. 

Slowly, wearily, the little party turned aside. In 
the grove of spruce the snow clung thick and heavy. 
A cold blackness enveloped them like a damp blan- 
ket. Wind, dying with the sun, shook the snow 
from the trees and cried mournfully in their tops. 
Gray settled on the landscape, palpable, real, extin- 
guishing the world. It was the second dreadful 
hour of the day, the hour when the man, weary, dis- 
couraged, the sweat of travel freezing on him, must 
still address himself to the task of making a home 
in the wilderness. 

Again the sledge was turned on its side. Dick 
and May-may-gwan removed their snow-shoes, and, 
using them as shovels, began vigorously to scrape 
and dig away the snow. Sam unstrapped the axe 
and went for firewood. He cut it with little tenta- 
tive strokes, for in the intense cold the steel was al- 
most as brittle as glass. 

Now a square of ground flanked by high snow 
walls was laid bare. The two then stripped boughs 


188 THE SILENT PLACES 

of balsam with which to carpet all one end of it. 
They unharnessed the dogs, and laid the sledge 
across one end of the clear space, covering it with 
branches in order to keep the dogs from gnawing 
the moose-skin wrapper. It was already ^uite dark. 

But at this point Sam returned with fuel. At 
once the three set about laying a fire nearly across 
the end of the cleared space opposite the sledge. 
In a moment a tiny flame cast the first wavering 
shadows against the darkness. Silently the inimical 
forces of the long day withdrew. 

Shortly the camp was completed. Before the 
fire, impaled on sticks, hung the frozen whitefish 
thawing out for the dogs. Each animal was to re- 
ceive two. The kettle boiled. Meat sizzled over the 
coals. A piece of ice, whittled to a point, dripped 
drinking-water like a faucet. The snow-bank ram- 
parts were pink in the glow. They reflected appre- 
ciably the heat of the fire, though they were not in 
the least affected by it, and remained flaky to the 
touch. A comfortable sizzling and frying and bub- 
bling and snapping filled the little dome of firelight, 
beyond which was the wilderness. Weary with an 
immense fatigue the three lay back waiting for their 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 189 

supper to be done. The dogs, too, waited patiently 
just at the edge of the heat, their bushy tails cov- 
ering the bottoms of their feet and their noses, as 
nature intended. Only Mack, the hound, lacking 
this protection, but hardened to greater exposure, 
lay flat on his side, his paws extended to the blaze. 
They all rested quietly, worn out, apparently 
without the energy to move a single hair. But 
now Dick, rising, took down from its switch the 
first of the whitefish. Instantly every dog was on 
his feet. Their eyes glared yellow, their jaws 
slavered, they leaped toward the man who held the 
fish high above his head and kicked energetically 
at the struggling animals. Sam took the dog 
whip to help. Between them the food was dis- 
tributed, two fish to a dog. The beasts took each 
his share to a place remote from the others and 
bolted it hastily, returning at once on the chance 
of a further distribution, or the opportunity to steal 
from his companions. After a little more roaming 
about, growling and suspicious sniffing, they again 
settled down one by one to slumber. 

Almost immediately after supper the three 
turned in, first removing and hanging before the 


190 THE SILENT PLACES 

fire the duffel and moccasins worn during the day. 
These were replaced by larger and warmer sleep 
moccasins lined with fur. The warm-lined cover- 
ings they pulled up over and around them com- 
pletely, to envelop even their heads. Tliis ar- 
rangement is comfortable only after long use has 
accustomed one to the half-suffocation ; but it is 
necessary, not only to preserve the warmth of the 
body, but also to protect the countenance from 
freezing. At once they fell into exhausted sleep. 

As though they had awaited a signal, the dogs 
arose and proceeded to investigate the camp. 
Nothing was too trivial to escape their attention. 
Billy found a tiny bit of cooked meat. Promptly 
he was called on to protect his discovery against 
a vigorous onslaught from the hound and the other 
husky. Over and over the fighting dogs rolled, 
snorting and biting, awakening the echoes of the 
forest, even trampling the sleepers, who, neverthe- 
less, did not stir. In the mean time, Claire, unin- 
volved, devoured the morsel. The trouble grad- 
ually died down. One after another the animals 
dug themselves holes in the snow, where they 
curled up, their bushy tails over their noses and 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 191 

their fore paws. Only Mack, the hound with the 
wrinkled face and long, pendent ears, unendowed 
with such protection, crept craftily between his 
sleeping masters. 

Gradually the fire died to coals, then filmed to 
ashes. Hand in hand the cold and the darkness 
invaded the camp. As the firelight faded, objects 
showed dimly, growing ever more distinct through 
the dying glow — the snow-laden bushes, the 
pointed trees against a steel sky of stars. The 
little, artificial tumult of homely sound by which 
these men had created for the moment an illusion 
of life sank down under the unceasing pressure of 
the verities, so that the wilderness again flowed 
unobstructed through the forest aisles. With a 
last pop of coals the faint noise of the fire ceased. 
Then an even fainter noise slowly became audible, 
a crackling undertone as of silken banners rust- 
ling. And at once, splendid, barbaric, the mighty 
orgy of the winter-time aurora began. 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 


In a day or two Dick was attacked by the fearful 
mol de raquette, which tortures into knots the mus- 
cles of the leg below the knee ; and by cramps that 
doubled him up in his blankets. This was the di- 
rect result of his previous inaction. He moved only 
with pain; and yet, by the stern north-country 
code, he made no complaint and moved as rapidly as 
possible. Each time he raised his knee a sharp pain 
stabbed his groin, as though he had been stuck by 
a penknife; each time he bent his ankle in the re- 
cover the mol de raquette twisted his calves, and 
stretched his ankle tendons until he felt that his 
very feet were insecurely attached and would drop 
off. During the evening he sat quiet, but after he 
had fallen asleep from the mere exhaustion of the 
day’s toil, he doubled up, straightened out, groaned 
aloud, and spoke rapidly in the strained voice of 
one who suffers. Often he would strip his legs by 
the fire, in order that Sam could twist a cleft stick 
192 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 


193 

vigorously about the affected muscles; which is the 
Indian treatment. As for the cramps, they took 
care of themselves. The day’s journey was neces- 
sarily shortened until he had partly recovered, but 
even after the worst was over, a long tramp al- 
ways brought a slight recurrence. 

For the space of nearly ten weeks these people 
travelled thus in the region of the Kabinikagam. 
Sometimes they made long marches; sometimes they 
camped for the hunting; sometimes the great, fierce 
storms of the north drove them to shelter, snowed 
them under, and passed on shrieking. The wind 
opposed them. At first of little account, its very 
insistence gave it value. Always the stinging snow 
whirling into the face; always the eyes watering 
and smarting; always the unyielding opposition 
against which to bend the head ; always the rush of 
sound in the ears, — a distraction against which the 
senses had to struggle before they could take their 
needed cognisance of trail and of game. An un- 
easiness was abroad with the wind, an uneasiness 
that infected the men, the dogs, the forest creatures, 
the very insentient trees themselves. It racked 
the nerves. In it the inimical Spirit of the North 


194 THE SILENT PLACES 

seemed to find its plainest symbol; though many 

difficulties she cast in the way were greater to be 

overcome. 

Ever the days grew shorter. The sun swung 
above the horizon, low to the south, and dipped 
back as though pulled by some invisible string. 
Slanting through the trees it gave little cheer and 
no warmth. Early in the afternoon it sank, sil- 
houetting the pointed firs, casting across the snow 
long, crimson shadows, which faded into gray. It 
was replaced by a moon, chill and remote, dead as 
the white world on which it looked. 

In the great frost continually the trees were 
splitting with loud, sudden reports. The cold had 
long since squeezed the last drops of moisture from 
the atmosphere. It was metallic, clear, hard as ice, 
brilliant as the stars, compressed with the freezing. 
The moon, the stars, the earth, the very heavens 
glistened like polished steel. Frost lay on the land 
thick as a coverlid. It hid the east like clouds of 
smoke. Snow remained unmelted two feet from the 
camp-fire. 

And the fire alone saved these people from the 
enemy. If Sam stooped for a moment to adjust his 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 195 

snow-shoe strap, he straightened his back with a 
certain reluctance, — already the benumbing prelim- 
inary to freezing had begun. If Dick, flipping his 
mitten from his hand to light his pipe, did not catch 
the fire at the second tug, he had to resume the mit- 
ten and beat the circulation into his hand before re- 
newing the attempt, lest the ends of his fingers be- 
come frosted. Movement, always and incessantly, 
movement alone could keep going the vital forces 
on these few coldest days until the fire had been 
built to fight back the white death. 

It was the land of ghosts. Except for the few 
hours at midday these people moved in the gloom 
and shadow of a nether world. The long twilight 
was succeeded by longer night, with its burnished 
stars, its dead moon, its unearthly aurora. On the 
fresh snow were the tracks of creatures, but in the 
flesh they glided almost invisible. The ptarmigan’s 
bead eye alone betrayed him, he had no outline. 
The ermine’s black tip was the only indication of 
his presence. Even the larger animals, — the cari- 
bou, the moose — had either turned a dull gray, or 
were so rimed by the frost as to have lost all ap- 
pearance of solidity. It was ever a surprise to find 


196 THE SILENT PLACES 

these phantoms bleeding red, to discover that their 
flesh would resist the knife. During the strife of 
the heavy northwest storms one side of each tree 
had become more or less plastered with snow, so that 
even their dark trunks flashed mysteriously into 
and out of view. In the entire world of the great 
white silence the only solid, enduring, palpable 
reality was the tiny sledge train crawling with infi- 
nite patience across its vastness. 

White space, a feeling of littleness and impo- 
tence, twilight gloom, burnished night, bitter cold, 
unreality, phantasmagoria, ghosts like those which 
surged about iEneas, and finally clogging, white 
silence, — these were the simple but dreadful ele- 
ments of that journey which lasted, without event, 
from the middle of November until the latter part 
of January. 

Never in all that time was an hour of real com- 
fort to be anticipated. The labours of the day 
w ere succeeded by the shiverings of the night. Ex- 
haustion alone induced sleep ; and the racking chill 
of early morning alone broke it. The invariable 
diet was meat, tea, and pemmican. Besides the res- 
olution required for the day’s journey and the 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 197 

night’s discomfort, was the mental anxiety as to 
whether or not game would be found. Dis- 
couragements were many. Sometimes with full an- 
ticipation of a good day’s run, they w^ould consume 
hours in painfully dragging the sledge over unex- 
pected obstructions. At such times Wolf, always 
of an evil disposition, made trouble. Thus be- 
sides the resolution of spirit necessary to the work, 
there had to be pumped up a surplusage to meet 
the demands of difficult dog-driving. And when, 
as often happened, a band of the gray wolves 
would flank them within smelling distance, the ex- 
asperation of it became almost unbearable. Time* 
and again Sam had almost forcibly to restrain 
Dick from using the butt of his whip on Wolf’s 
head. 

Nor could they treat themselves in the weary suc- 
cession of days to an occasional visit with human 
beings. During the course of their journey they 
investigated in turn three of the four trapping dis- 
tricts of the Kabinikagam. But Sam’s judgment 
advised that they should not show themselves to the 
trappers. He argued that no sane man would look 
for winter posts at this time of year, and it might 


198 THE SILENT PLACES 

be difficult otherwise to explain the presence of white 
men. It was quite easy to read by the signs how 
many people were to be accounted for in each dis- 
trict, and then it was equally easy to ambush in a 
tree, during the rounds for examination of the 
traps, until their identities had all been established. 
It was necessary to climb a tree in order to escape 
discovery by the trapper’s dog. Of course the trail 
of our travellers would be found by the trapper, 
but unless he actually saw them he would most prob- 
ably conclude them to be Indians moving to the 
west. Accordingly Dick made long detours to in- 
tercept the trappers, and spent many cold hours 
waiting for them to pass, while Sam and the girl 
hunted in another direction to replenish the sup- 
plies. In this manner the frequenters of these dis- 
tricts had been struck from the list. No one of them 
was Jingoss. There remained but one section, and 
that the most northerly. If that failed, then there 
was nothing to do but to retrace the long, weary 
j ourney up the Kabinikagam, past the rapids where 
Dick had hurt himself, over the portage, down the 
Mattawishgina, across the Missinaibie, on which 
they had started their ti-avels, to the country of the 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 199 

Nipissing. Discussing this possibility one rest-time, 
Dick said: 

“We’d be right back where we started. I think 
it would pay us to go down to Brunswick House 
and get a new outfit. It’s only about a week up the 
Missinaibie.” Then, led by Inevitable association 
of ideas, “Wonder if those Crees had a good time.? 
And I wonder if they’ve knocked our friend Ah-tek, 
the Chippewa, on the head yet ? He was a bad cus- 
tomer.” 

“You better hope they have,” replied Sam. 
“He’s got it in for you.” 

Dick shrugged his shoulders and laughed easily. 

“That’s all right,” insisted the older man; “just 
the same, an Injun never forgets and never fails to 
get even. You may think he’s forgotten, but he’s 
layin’ for you just the same,” and then, because 
they happened to be resting in the lea of a bank and 
the sun was at its highest for the day, Sam went on 
to detail one example after another from his wide 
observation of the tenacity with which an Indian 
pursues an obligation, whether of gratitude or en- 
mity. “They’ll travel a thousand miles to get 
even,” he concluded. “They’ll drop the most im- 


200 THE SILENT PLACES 

portant business they got, if they think they have 
a good chance to make a killing. He’ll run up 
against you some day, my son, and then you’ll have 
it out.” 

“All right,” agreed Dick, “I’ll take care of him. 
Perhaps I’d better get organised; he may be lay- 
ing for me around the next bend.” 

“I don’t know what made us talk about it,” said 
Sam, “but funnier things have happened to me.” 

Dick, with mock solicitude, loosened his knife. 

But Sam had suddenly become grave. “I believe 
in those things,” he said, a little fearfully. “They 
save a man sometimes, and sometimes they help him 
to get what he wants. It’s a Chippewa we’re after ; 
it’s a Chippewa we’ve been talkin’ about. They’s 
something in it.” 

“I don’t know what you’re driving at,” said 
Dick. 

“I don’t know,” confessed Sam, “but I have a 
kind of a hunch we won’t have to go back to the 
Nipissing.” He looked gropingly about, without 
seeing, in the manner of an old man. 

“I hope your hunch is a good one,” replied Dick. 
“Well, mush on!” 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 


201 


The little cavalcade had made barely a dozen 
steps in advance when Sam, who was leading, came 
to a dead halt. 

“Well, what do you make of that?” he asked. 

Across the way lay the trunk of a fallen tree. It 
had been entirely covered with snow, whose line ran 
clear and unbroken its entire length except at one 
point, where it dipped to a shallow notch. 

“Well, what do you make of that?” Sam in- 
quired again. 

“What?” asked Dick. 

Sam pointed to the shallow depression in the snow 
covering the prostrate tree-trunk. 


CHAPTER NINETEEN 


Dick looked at his companion a little bewildered. 

“Why, you must know as well as I do,” he said, 
“somebody stepped on top of that log with snow- 
shoes, and it’s snowed since.” 

“Yes, but whoi^” insisted Sam. 

“The trapper in this district, of course.” 

“Sure ; and let me tell you this, — that trapper is 
the man we’re after. That’s his trail.” 

“How do you know.?” 

“I’m sure. I’ve got a hunch.” 

Dick looked sceptical, then impressed. After all, 
you never could tell what a man might not learn out 
in the Silent Places, and the old woodsman had 
grown gray among woods secrets. 

“We’ll follow the trail and find his camp,” pur- 
sued Sam. 

“You ain’t going to ambush him?” inquired 
Dick. 

“What’s the use? He’s the last man we have to 


202 


CHAPTER NINETEEN 203 

tend to in this district, anyway. Even if it 
shouldn’t be Jingoss, we don’t care if he sees us. 
We’ll tell him we’re travelling from York to Win- 
nipeg. It must be pretty near on the direct line 
from here.” 

“All right,” said Dick. 

They set themselves to following the trail. As 
the only persistences of it through the last storm 
were to be found where the snow-shoes had left deep 
notches on the fallen timber, this was not an easy 
matter. After a time the affair was simplified by 
the dogs. Dick had been breaking trail, but paused 
a moment to tie his shoe. The team floundered 
ahead. After a moment it discovered the half- 
packed snow of the old trail a foot below the newer 
surface, and, finding it easier travel, held to it. Be- 
tween the partial success at this, and an occasional 
indication on the tops of fallen trees, the woodsmen 
managed to keep the direction of the fore-runner’s 
travel. 

Suddenly Dick stopped short in his tracks. 

“Look there !” he exclaimed. 

Before them was a place where a man had 
camped for the night. 


204 


THE SILENT PLACES 


“He’s travelling !” cried Sam. 

This exploded the theory that the trail had been 
made by the Indian to whom the trapping rights 
of the district belonged. At once the two men 
began to spy here and there eagerly, trying to 
reconstruct from the meagre vestiges of occupa- 
tion who the camper had been and what he had 
been doing. 

The condition of the fire corroborated what the 
condition of the trail had indicated. Probably the 
man had passed about three days ago. The nature 
of the fire proclaimed him an Indian, for it was 
small and round, where a white man’s is long and 
hot. He had no dogs; therefore his journey was 
short, for, necessarily, he was carrying what he 
needed on his back. Neither on the route nor here 
in camp were any indications that he had carried 
or was examining traps ; so the conclusion was that 
this trip was not merely one of the long circles a 
trapper sometimes makes about the limits of his 
domain. What, then, was the errand of a single 
man, travelling light and fast in the dead of 
winter.? 

“It’s the man we’re after,” said Sam, with con- 


CHAPTER NINETEEN 205 

viction. “He’s either taken the alarm, or he’s visit- 
ing.” 

“Look,” called the girl from beneath the wide 
branches of a spruce. 

They went. Beneath a lower limb, whose fan 
had protected it from the falling snow, was the sin- 
gle clear print of a snow-shoe. 

“Hah!” cried Sam, in delight, and fell on his 
knees to examine it. At the first glance he uttered 
another exclamation of pleasure, for, though the 
shoe had been of the Ojibway pattern, in certain 
modifications it suggested a more northerly origin. 
The toes had been craftily upturned, the tails short- 
ened, the webbing more closely woven. 

“It’s Ojibway,” induced Sam, over his shoulder, 
“but the man who made it has lived among the 
Crees. That fits Jingoss. Dick, it’s the man we’re 
after !” 

It was by now almost noon. They boiled tea at 
the old camp site, and tightened their belts for a 
stem chase. 

That afternoon the head wind opposed them, ex- 
asperating, tireless in its resistance, never lulling 
for a single instant. At the moment it seemed more 


206 THE SILENT PLACES 

than could be borne. Near one o’clock it did them 
a great despite, for at that hour the trail came to 
a broad and wide lake. There the snow had fallen, 
and the wind had drifted it so that the surface of 
the ice was white and smooth as paper. The faint 
trail led accurately to the bank — and was oblit- 
erated. 

Nothing remained but to circle the shores to 
right and to left until the place of egress was dis- 
covered. This meant long work and careful work, 
for the lake was of considerable size. It meant 
that the afternoon would go, and perhaps the day 
following, while the man whose footsteps they were 
following would be drawing steadily away. 

It was agreed that May-may-gwan should re- 
main with the sledge, that Dick should circle to the 
right, and Sam to the left, and that all three should 
watch each other carefully for a signal of discov- 
ery. 

But now Sam happened to glance at Mack, the 
wrinkle-nosed hound. The sledge had been pulled 
a short distance out on the ice. Mack, alternately 
whining and sniffing, was trying to induce his com- 
rades to turn slanting to the left. 


CHAPTER NINETEEN 207 

“What’s the matter with that dog?” he inquired 
on a sudden^ 

“Smells something; what’s the difference? Let’s 
get a move on us,” replied Dick, carelessly. 

“Hold on,” ordered Sam. 

He rapidly changed the dog-harness in order to 
put Mack in the lead. 

“Mush ! Mush on !” he commanded. 

Immediately the hound, his nose low, uttered a 
deep, bell-like note and struck on the diagonal across 
the lake. 

“Come on,” said Sam ; “he’s got it.” 

Across the white waste of the lake, against the 
bite of the unobstructed wind, under the shelter of 
the bank opposite they ran at slightly accelerated 
speed, then without pause into the forest on the 
other side. 

“Look,” said the older woodsman, pointing ahead 
to a fallen trunk. It was the trail. 

“That was handy,” commented Dick, and 
promptly forgot about it. But Sam treasured the 
incident for the future. 

And then, just before two o’clock, the wind did 
them a great service. Down the long, straight lines 


208 THE SILENT PLACES 

of its flight came distinctly the creak of snow-shoes. 
Evidently the traveller, whoever he might be, was 
retracing his steps. 

At once Sam overturned the sledge, thus an- 
choring the dogs, and Dick ran ahead to con- 
ceal himself. May-may-gwan offered a sugges- 
tion. 

“The dogs may bark too soon,” said she. 

Instantly Sam was at work binding fast their 
jaws with buckskin thongs. The girl assisted him. 
When the task was finished he ran forward to join 
Dick, hidden in the bushes. 

Eight months of toil focussed in the moment. 
The faint creaking of the shoes came ever louder 
down the wind. Once it paused. Dick caught his 
breath. Had the traveller discovered anything sus- 
picious? He glanced behind him. 

“Where’s the girl?” he hissed between his teeth. 
“Damn her, she’s warned him!” 

But almost with Sam’s reply the creaking began 
again, and after an instant of indetermination con- 
tinued its course. 

Then suddenly the woodsmen, with a simulta- 
neous movement, raised their rifles, and with equal 


CHAPTER NINETEEN 20P 

unanimity lowered them, gasping with astonish- 
ment. Dick’s enemy, Ah-tek, the renegade Chip- 
pewa of Haukemah’s band on the Missinaibie, 
stepped from the concealment of the bushes. 


CHAPTER TWENTY 


Of the three the Indian was the first to recover. 

“Bo’ jou’, bo’ jou’,” said he, calmly. 

Sam collected himself to a reply. Dick said noth- 
ing, but fell behind, with his rifle across his arm. 
All marched on in silence to where lay the dog- 
sledge, guarded by May-may-gwan. The Chippe- 
wa’s keen eyes took in every detail of the scene, the 
overturning of the sledge, the muzzling of the dogs, 
the general nature of the equipment. If he made 
any deductions, he gave no sign, nor did he evince 
any further astonishment at finding these men so 
far north at such a time of year. Only, when he 
thought himself unobserved, he cast a glance of pe- 
culiar intelligence at the girl, who, after a mo- 
ment’s hesitation, returned it. 

The occasion was one of elaborate courtesy. Sam 
ordered tea boiled, and offered his tobacco. Over 
the fire he ventured a more direct inquiry than hk 
customary policy would have advised. 

210 


CHAPTER TWENTY 


£11 


“Mj brother is a long journey from the Missi- 
naibie.” 

The Chippewa assented. 

“Haukemah, then, hunts these districts.” 

The Chippewa replied no. 

“My brother has left Haukemah.” 

Again the Chippewa denied, but after enjoying 
for a moment the baffling of the old man’s inten- 
tions, he volunteered information. 

“The trapper of thi district is my brother. I 
have visited him.” 

“It was a short visit for so long a journey. The 
trail is but three days oM.” 

Ah-tek assented gravely. Evidently he cared 
very little whether or not his explanation was ac- 
cepted. 

“How many days to Winnipeg?” asked Sam. 

“I have never been there,” replied the Indian. 

“We have summered in the region of the Missi- 
naibie,” proffered Sam. “Now we go to Winni- 
peg.” 

The Indian’s inscrutable countenance gave no 
indication as to whether or not he believed this. 
After a moment he knocked the ashes from his pipe 


212 THE SILENT PLACES 

and arose, casting another sharp glance at May- 
maj-gwan. She had been busy at the sledge. Now 
she approached, carrying simply her own blankets 
and clothing. 

“This man,” said she to the two, “is of my people* 
He returns to them. I go with him.” 

The Chippewa twisted his feet into his snow- 
shoes, nodded to the white men, and swung away on 
the back trail in the direction whence our travellers 
had come. The girl, without more leave-taking, 
followed close at his back. For an instant the 
crunch of shoes splintered the frosty air. Then 
they rounded a bend. Silence fell swift as a hawk. 

“Well, I’ll be damned!” ejaculated Dick at last. 
“Do you think he was really up here visiting?” 

“No, of course not,” replied Sam. “Don’t you 
see ” 

“Then he came after the girl.?” 

“Good God, noP"* answered Sam. “He ” 

“Then he was after me,” interrupted Dick again 
with growing excitement. “Why didn’t you let me 
shoot him, Sam ” 

“Will you shut up and listen to me?” demanded 
the old man, impatiently. “If he’d wanted you. 


CHAPTER TWENTY 

he’d have got you when you were hurt last summer ; 
and if he’d wanted the girl, he’d have got her then, 
too. It’s all clear to me. He has been visiting a 
friend, — perhaps his brother, as he said, — and he 
did spend less than three days in the visit. What 
did he come for.? Let me tell you ! That friend, or 
brother, is Jingoss, and he came up here to warn 
him that we’re after him. The Chippewa suspected 
us a little on the Missinaibie, but he wasn’t sure. 
Probably he’s had his eye on us ever since.” 

“But why didn’t he warn this Jingoss long ago, 
then.?” objected Dick. 

“Because we fooled him, just as we fooled all the 
Injuns. We might be looking for winter posts, 
just as we said. And then if he came up here and 
told Jingoss we were after him, when really we 
didn’t know beans about Jingoss and his steals, and 
then this Jingoss should skip the country and leave 
an almighty good fur district all for nothing, that 
would be a nice healthy favour to do for a man, 
wouldn’t it ! No, he had to be sure before he made 
any moves. And he didn’t get to be sure until he 
heard somehow from some one who saw our trails 
that three people were travelling in the winter up 


214 THE SILENT PLACES 

through this country. Then he piked out to warn 

Jingoss.” 

“I believe you’re right !” cried Dick. 

“Of course I’m right. And another thing; if 
that’s the case we’re pretty close there. How many 
more trappers are there in this district ? Just one ! 
And since this Chippewa is going back on his back 
trail within three days after he made it, he couldn’t 
have gone farther than that one man. And that 
one man must be ” 

“ Jingoss himself !” finished Dick. 

“Within a day and a half of us, anyway ; prob- 
ably much closer,” supplemented Sam. “It’s as 
plain as a sledge-trail.” 

“He’s been warned,” Dick reminded him. 

But Sam, afire with the inspiration of inductive 
reasoning, could see no objection there. 

“This Chippewa knew we were in the country,” 
he argued, “but he hadn’t any idea we were so close. 
If he had, he wouldn’t have been so foolish as to 
follow his own back track when he was going out. 
I don’t know what his ideas were, of course, but he 
was almighty surprised to see us here. He’s warned 
this Jingoss, not more than a day or so ago. But 


CHAPTER TWENTY 215 

he didn’t tell him to skedaddle at once. He said, 
‘Those fellows are after you, and they’re moseying 
around down south of here, and probably they’ll get 
up here in the course of the winter. You’d proba- 
ply better slide out ’till they get done.’ Then he 
stayed a day and smoked a lot, and started back. 
Now, if Jingoss just thinks we’re coming some iime^ 
and not to-morrow, he ain’t going to pull up stakes 
in such a hell of a hurry. He’ll pack what furs he’s 
got, and he’ll pick up what traps he’s got out. 
That would take him several days, anyway. My 
son, we’re in the nick of time !” 

“Sam, you’re a wonder,” said Dick, admiringly. 
“I never could have thought all that out.” 

“If that idea’s correct,” went on Sam, “and the 
Chippewa’s just come from Jingoss, why we’ve got 
the Chippewa’s trail to follow back, haven’t we.^^” 

“Sure!” agreed Dick, “all packed and broken.” 

They righted the sledge and unbound the dogs’ 
jaws. 

“Well, we got rid of the girl,” said Dick, cas- 
ually. “Damn little fool. I didn’t think she’d 
leave us that easy. She’d been with us quite a while.” 

“Neither did I,” admitted Sam ; “but it’s natural, 


2I6 THE SILENT PLACES 

Dick. We ain’t her people, and we haven’t treated 
he/ very well, and I don’t wonder she was sick of it 
and took the first chance back. We’ve got our work 
cut out for us now, and we’re just as well off with- 
out her.” 

“The Chippewa’s a sort of public benefactor all 
round,” said Dick. 

Th(* dogs yawned prodigiously, stretching their 
jaws after the severe muzzling. Sam began reflec- 
tively Ur undo the flaps of the sledge. 

“Guess we’d better camp here,” said he. “It’s 
getting pretty late and we’re due for one hell of a 
tramp to-morrow.” 


CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 


Some time during the night May-may-gwan re- 
joined them. Sam was awakened by the demon- 
stration of the dogs, at first hostile, then friendly 
with recognition. He leaped to his feet, startled at 
the apparition of a human figure. Dick sat up alert 
at once. The fire had almost died, but between the 
glow of its embers and the light of the aurora 
sifted through the trees they made her out. 

“Oh, for God’s saJceP^ snarled Dick, and lay 
back again in his blankets, but in a moment resumed 
his sitting position. “She made her choice,” he 
proffered vehemently, “make her stick to it ! Make 
her stick to it. She can’t change her mind 
every other second like this, and we don’t need 
her!” 

But Sam, piling dry wood on the fire, looked in 
her face. 

“Shut up, Dick,” he commanded sharply. 
“Something in this.” 


217 


218 THE SILENT PLACES 

The young man stared at his companion an enig- 
matical instant, hesitating as to his reply. 

“Oh, all right,” he replied at last with ostenta- 
tious indifference. “I don’t give a damn. Don’t 
sit up too late with the young lady. Good night !” 
He disappeared beneath his coverings, plainly dis- 
gruntled, as, for a greater or less period of time, 
he always was when even the least of his plans or 
points of view required readjustment. 

Sam boiled tea, roasted a caribou steak, knelt and 
removed the girl’s damp foot-gear and replaced it 
with fresh. Then he held the cup to her lips, cut 
the tough meat for her with his hunting-knife, even 
fed her as though she were a child. He piled more 
wood on the fire, he wrapped about her shoulders 
one of the blankets with the hare-skin lining. 
Finally, when nothing more remained to be done, 
he lit his pipe and squatted on his heels close to 
her, lending her mood the sympathy of human 
silence. 

She drank the tea, swallowed the food, permitted 
the change of her foot-gear, bent her shoulders to 
the blanket, all without the appearance of con- 
sciousness. The corners of her lips were bent firmly 


CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 219 

downward. Her eyes, fixed and exalted, gazed 
beyond the fire, beyond the dancing shadows, 
beyond the world. After a long interval she 
began to speak, low-voiced, in short disconnected 
sentences. 

“My brothers seek the Ojibway, Jingoss. They 
will take him to Conjuror’s House. But Jingoss 
knows that my brothers come. He has been told 
by Ah-tek. He leaves the next sun. He is to 
travel to the west, to Peace River. Now his camp 
is five hours to the north. I know where it is. Jin- 
goss has three dogs. He has much meat. He has 
no gun but the trade-gun. I have learned this. I 
come to tell it to my brothers.” 

“Why, May-may-gwan inquired Sam, gently. 

She turned on him a look of pride. 

“Have you thought I had left you for him she 
asked. “I have learned these things.” 

Sam uttered an exclamation of dismay. 

“What.?” she queried with a slow surprise. 

“But he, the Chippewa,” Sam pointed out, “now 
be knows of our presence. He will aid Jingoss ; he 
will warn him afresh to-night !” 

May-may-gwan was again rapt in sad but ex- 


«20 THE SILENT PLACES 

alted contemplation of something beyond. She 

answered merely by a contemptuous gesture. 

“But — ” insisted Sam. 

“I know,” she replied, with conviction. 

Sam, troubled he knew not why, leaned forward 
to arrange the fire. 

“How do you know. Little Sister.?” he inquired, 
after some hesitation. 

She answered by another weary gesture. Again 
Sam hesitated. 

“Little Sister,” said he, at last, “I am an old man. 
I have seen many years pass. They have left me 
some wisdom. They have made my heart good to 
those who are in trouble. If it was not to return to 
your own people, then why did you go with Ah-tek 
this morning.?” 

“That I might know what my brothers wished 
to know.” 

“And you think he told you all these things 
truly.?” doubted Sam. 

She looked directly at him. 

“Little Father,” said she slowly, “long has this 
man wanted me to live in his wigwam. For that he 
joined Haukemah’s band; — because I was there. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 221 

I have been good in his eyes. Never have I given 
him favour. My favour always would unlock his 
heart.” 

“But are you sure he spoke truth,” objected 
Sam. “You have never looked kindly on him. You 
left Haukemah’s band to go with us. How could 
he trust you.^” 

She looked at him bravely. 

“Little Father,” she replied, “there is a moment 
when man and woman trust utterly, and when they 
say truly what lies in their hearts.” 

“Good God !” cried Sam, in English. 

“It was the only way,” she answered the spirit of 
his interjection. “I had known before only his 
forked tongue.” 

“Why did you do this, girl.^^ You had no right, 
no reason. You should have consulted us.” 

“Little Father,” said she, “the people of your 
race are a strange people. I do not understand 
them. An evil is done them, and they pass it by ; a 
good is done them, and they do not remember. 
With us it is different. Always in our hearts dwell 
the good and the evil.” 

“What good have we done to you asked Sam, 


222 THE SILENT PLACES 

“Jibiwanisi has looked into my heart,” she re- 
plied, lapsing into the Indian rhetoric of deep emo- 
tion. “He has looked into my heart, and in the 
doorway he blots out the world. At the first I 
wanted to die when he would not look on me with 
favour. Then I wanted to die when I thought I 
should never possess him. Now it is enough that I 
am near him, that I lay his fire, and cook his tea 
and caribou, that I follow his trail, that I am ready 
when he needs me, that I can raise my eyes and see 
him breaking the trail. For when I look up at him 
the sun breaks out, and the snow shines, and there 
is a light under the trees. And when I think of 
raising my eyes, and he not there, nor anywhere 
near, then my heart freezes. Little Father, freezes 
with loneliness.” 

Abruptly she arose, casting aside the blanket 
and stretching her arms rigid above her head. 
Then with equal abruptness she stooped, caught up 
her bedding, spread it out, and lay down stolidly 
to rest, turning her back to both the white men. 

But Sam remained crouched by the fire until the 
morning hour of waking, staring with troubled 
eyes. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 


Later in the morning Dick attempted some remark 
on the subject of the girl’s presence. At once Sam 
whirled on him with a gust of passion utterly unlike 
his ordinary deliberate and even habit. 

“Shut your damned mouth!” he fairly shouted. 

Dick whistled in what he thought was a new en- 
lightenment, and followed literally the other’s vig- 
orous advice. Not a syllable did he utter for an 
hour, by which time the sun had risen. Then he 
stopped and pointed to a fresh trail converging into 
that they were following. 

The prints of two pairs of snow-shoes joined; 
those of one returned. 

Sam gasped. Dick looked ironical. The inter- 
pretation was plain without the need of words. The 
Chippewa and the girl, although they had started 
to the southeast, had made a long detour in order 
again to reach Jingoss. These two pairs of snow- 
shoe tracks marked where they had considered it 
223 


224 THE SILENT PLACES 

safe again to strike into the old trail made by the 
Chippewa in going and coming. The one track 
showed where Ah-tek had pushed on to rejoin his 
friend ; the other was that of the girl returning for 
some reason the night before, perhaps to throw 
them off the scent. 

“Looks as if they’d fooled you, and fooled you 
good,” said Dick, cheerfully. 

For a single instant doubt drowned Sam’s faith 
in his own insight and in human nature. 

“Dick,” said he, quietly, “raise your eyes.” 

Not five rods farther on the trail the two had 
camped for the night. Evidently Ah-tek had dis- 
covered his detour to have lasted out the day, and, 
having satisfied himself that his and his friend’s 
enemies were not ahead of him, he had called a halt. 
The snow had been scraped away, the little fire 
built, the ground strewn with boughs. So far the 
indications were plain and to be read at a glance. 
But upright in the snow were two snow-shoes, and 
tumbled on the ground was bedding. 

Instantly the two men leaped forward. May- 
may-gwan, her face stolid and expressionless, but 
her eyes glowing, stood straight and motionless by 


CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 225 

the dogs. Together they laid hold of the smoothly 
spread top blanket and swept it aside. Beneath was 
a jumble of warmer bedding. In it, his fists 
clenched, his eyes half open in the horrific surprise 
of a sudden calling, lay the Chippewa stabbed to 
the heart. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 


The silence of the grave laj over the white world. 
Deep in the forest a tree detonated with the frost. 
There by the cold last night’s camp the four human 
figures posed, motionless as a wind that has died. 
Only the dogs, lolling, stretching, sending the warm 
steam of their breathing into the dead air, seemed 
to stand for the world of life, and the world of sen- 
tient creatures. And yet their very presence, unob- 
trusive in the forest shadows, by contrast thrust 
farther these others into the land of phantoms and 
of ghosts. 

Then quietly, as with one consent, the three liv- 
ing ones turned away. The older woodsman 
stepped into the trail, leading the way for the 
dogs; the younger woodsman swung in behind at 
the gee-pole ; the girl followed. Once more, slowly, 
as though reluctant, the forest trees resumed their 
silent progress past those three toiling in the tread- 
mill of the days. The camp dropped back ; it con- 
226 


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 


227 


fused itself in the frost mists; it was gone, gone 
into the mystery and the vastness of the North, gone 
with its tragedy and its symbol of the greatness of 
human passion, gone with its one silent watcher star- 
-liig at the sky, awaiting the coming of day. The 
frost had mercifully closed again about its revela- 
tion. No human eye would ever read that page 
again. 

Each of the three seemed wrapped in the splendid 
isolation of his own dream. They strode on sight- 
less, like somnambulists. Only mechanically they 
kept the trail, and why they did so they could not 
have told. No coherent thoughts passed through 
their brains. But always the trees, frost-rimed, 
drifted past like phantoms; always the occult in- 
fluences of the North loomed large on their horizon 
like mirages, dwindled in the actuality, but threat- 
ened again in the bigness of mystery when they had 
passed. The North was near, threatening, driving 
the terror of her tragedy home to the hearts of 
these staring mechanical plodders, who now trav- 
elled they knew not why, farther and farther into 
the depths of dread. 

But the dogs stopped, and Billy, the leader, 


228 THE SILENT PLACES 

sniffed audibly in inquiry of what lay ahead. In- 
stantly, in the necessity for action, the spell broke. 
The mystery which had lain so long at their horizon, 
which but now had crept in, threatening to smother 
them, rolled back to its accustomed place. The 
north withheld her hand. 

Before them was another camp, one that had been 
long used. A conical tepee or wigwam, a wide space 
cleared of snow, much debris, racks and scaffolds 
for the accommodation of supplies, all these attested 
long occupancy. 

Sam jerked the cover from his rifle, and cast a 
hasty glance at the nipple , to see if it was capped. 
Dick jumped forward and snatched aside the open- 
ing into the wigwam. 

“Not at home !” said he. 

“Gone,” corrected Sam, pointing to a fresh trail 
beyond. 

At once the two men turned their attention to 
this. After some difficulty they established the fact 
of a three-dog team. Testing the consistency of the 
snow they proved a heavy load on the toboggan. 

“I’m afraid that means he’s gone for good,” said 
Sam. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 229 

A further examination of camp corroborated 
this. The teepee had been made double, with the 
space between the two walls stuffed with moss, so 
evidently it had been built as permanent winter 
quarters. The fact of its desertion at this time of 
year confirmed the reasoning as to the identity 
of its occupant and the fact of his having been 
warned by the dead Chippewa. Skulls of animals 
indicated a fairly prosperous fur season. But the 
skulls of animals, a broken knife, a pile of balsam- 
boughs, and the deserted wigwam were all that re- 
mained. Jingoss had taken with him his traps, 
his pelts, his supplies. 

“That’s a good thing,” concluded Sam, “a 
mighty good thing. It shows he ain’t much scared. 
He don’t suspect we’re any where’s near him; only 
that it ain’t very healthy to spend the winter in this 
part of the country. If he’d thought we was close, 
he wouldn’t have lugged along a lot of plunder; 
he’d be flying mighty light.” 

“That’s right,” agreed Dick. 

“And in that case he isn’t travelling very fast. 
We’ll soon catch up.” 

“He only left this morning,” supplemented 


230 THE SILENT PLACES 

Dick, examining the frost-crystals in the new-cut 

trail. 

Without wasting further attention, they set out 
in pursuit. The girl followed. Dick turned to her. 

“I think we shall catch him very soon,” said he, 
in Ojibway. 

The girl’s face brightened and her eyes filled. 
The simple words admitted her to confidence, im- 
plied that she, too, had her share in the undertak- 
ing, her interest in its outcome. She stepped for- 
ward with winged feet of gladness. 

Luckily a light wind had sprung up against 
them. They proceeded as quietly and as swiftly 
as they could. In a short time they came to a spot 
where Jingoss had boiled tea. This indicated that 
he must have started late in the morning to have 
accomplished only so short a distance before noon. 
The trail, too, became fresher. 

Billy, the regular lead dog, on this occasion oc- 
cupied his official position ahead, although, as has 
been pointed out, he was sometimes alternated with 
the hound, who now ran just behind him. Third 
trotted Wolf, a strong beast, but a stupid; then 
Claire, at the sledge, sagacious, alert, ready to turn 


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 231 
the sledge from obstruction. For a long time all 
these beasts, with the strange intelligence of animals 
much associated with man, had entertained a strong 
interest in the doings of their masters. Something 
besides the day’s journey was in the wind. They 
felt it through their keen instinctive responsiveness 
to the moods of those over them; they knew it by 
the testimony of their bright eyes which told them 
that these investigations and pryings were not all 
in an ordinary day’s travel. Investigations and 
pryings appeal to a dog’s nature. Especially did 
Mack, the hound, long to be free of his harness that 
he, too, might sniff here and there in odd nooks and 
crannies, testing with that marvellously keen nose 
of his what his masters regarded so curiously. Now 
at last he understood from the frequent stops and 
examinations that the trail was the important 
thing. From time to time he sniffed of it deeply, 
saturating his memory with the quality of its efflu- 
via. Always it grew fresher. And then at last the 
warm animal scent rose alive to his nostrils, and he 
lifted his head and bayed. 

The long, weird sound struck against the silence 
with the impact of a blow. Nothing more undesira- 


232 THE SILENT PLACES 

ble could have happened. Again Mack bayed, and 
the echoing bell tones of his voice took on a strange 
similarity to a tocsin of warning. Rustling and 
crackling across the men’s fancies the influences of 
the North moved invisible, alert, suddenly roused. 

Dick whirled with an exclamation, throwing 
down and back the lever of his Winchester, his face 
suffused, his eye angry. 

“Damnation !” exclaimed Bolton, anticipating 
his intention, and springing forward in time to 
strike up the muzzle of the rifle, though not soon 
enough to prevent the shot. 

Against the snow, plastered on a distant tree, the 
bullet hit, scattering the fine powder; then rico- 
chetted, shrieking with increasing joy as it mounted 
the upper air. After it, as though released by its 
passage from the spell of the great frost, trooped 
the voices and echoes of the wilderness. In the still 
air such a racket would caiTy miles. 

Sam looked from the man to the dog. 

“Well, between the two of you !” said he. 

Dick sprang forward, lashing the team with his 
whip. 

“After him !” he shouted. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 2S3 

They ran in a swirl of light snow. In a very few 
moments they came to a bundle of pelts, a little pile 
of traps, the unnecessary impediments discarded by 
the man they pursued. So near had they been to 
a capture. 

Sam, out of breath, peremptorily called a halt. 

“Hold on !” he commanded. “Take it easy. We 
can’t catch him like this. He’s travelling light, and 
he’s one man, and he has a fresh team. He’ll pull 
away from us too easy, and leave us with worn-out 
dogs.” The old man sat and deliberately filled his 
pipe. 

Dick fumed up and down, chafing at the delay, 
convinced that something should be done imme- 
diately, but at a loss to tell what it should be. 

“What’ll we do, then ?” he asked, after a little. 

“He leaves a trail, don’t he.?^” inquired Sam. 
“We must follow it.” 

“But what good — ^how can we ever catch up 

“We’ve got to throw away our traps and extra 
dufHe. We’ve got to travel as fast as we can with- 
out wearing ourselves out. He may try to go 
too fast, and so we may wear him down. It’s our 
only show, anyway. If we lose him now, we’ll 


234 THE SILENT PLACES 

never find him again. That trail Is all we have to 

go by.” 

“How if it snows hard? It’s getting toward 
spring storms.” 

“If it snows hard — well — ” The old man fell 
silent, puffing away at his pipe. “One thing I want 
you to understand,” he continued, looking up with 
a sudden sternness, “don’t you ever take it on your- 
self to shoot that gun again. We’re to take that 
man alive. The noise of the shot to-day was a se- 
rious thing ; it gave Jingoss warning, and perhaps 
spoiled our chance to surprise him. But he might 
have heard us anyway. Let that go. But if you’d 
have killed that hound as you started out to do, 
you’d have done more harm than your fool head 
could straighten out in a lifetime. That hound — 
why — ^he’s the best thing we’ve got. I’d — I’d al- 
most rather lose our rifles than him — ” he trailed 
off again into rumination. 

Dick, sobered as he always was when his compan- 
ion took this tone, inquired why, but received no 
answer. After a moment Sam began to sort the 
contents of the sledge, casting aside all but the ne- 
cessities. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 


235 


“What’s the plan?” Dick ventured. 

“To follow.” 

“How long do you think it will be before we 
catch him?” 

“God knows.” 

The dogs leaned into their harness, almost fall- 
ing forward at the unexpected lightness of the load. 
Again the little company moved at measured gait. 
For ten minutes nothing was said. Then Dick: 

“Sam,” he said, “I think we have just about as 
much chance as a snowball in hell.” 

“So do I,” agreed the old woodsman, soberly. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 


They took up the trail methodically, as though no 
hurry existed. At the usual time of the evening 
they camped. Dick was for pushing on an extra 
hour or so, announcing himself not in the least tired, 
and the dogs fresh, but Sam would have none of it. 

“It’s going to be a long, hard pull,” he said. 
“We’re not going to catch up with him to-day, or 
to-morrow, or next day. It ain’t a question of 
whether you’re tired or the dogs are fresh to-night; 
it’s a question of how you’re going to be a month 
from now.” 

“We won’t be able to follow him a month,” ob- 
jected Dick. 

“Why.?” 

“It’ll snow, and then we’ll lose th’ trail. The 
spring snows can’t be far oflp now. They’ll cover it 
a foot deep.” 

“Mebbe,” agreed Sam, inconclusively. 

“Besides,” pursued Dick, “he’ll be with his own 
236 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 237 

people in less than a month, and then there won’t be 
any trail to follow.” 

Whereupon Sam looked a little troubled, for this, 
in his mind, was the chief menace to their success. 
If Jingoss turned south to the Lake Superior coun- 
try, he could lose himself among the Ojibways of 
that region; and, if all remained true to him, the 
white men would never again be able tc get trace of 
him. If all remained true to him : — on the chance 
of that Sam was staking his faith. The Honoura- 
ble the Hudson’s Bay Company has been established 
a great many years ; it has always treated its Ind- 
ians justly; it enjoys a tremendous prestige for in- 
fallibility. The bonds of race are strong, but the 
probabilities were good that in the tribes with whom 
Jingoss would be forced to seek sanctuary would 
be some members whose loyalty to the Company 
would out-balance the rather shadowy obligation 
to a man they had never seen before. Jingoss might 
be betrayed. The chances of it were fairly good. 
Sam Bolton knew that the Indian must be perfectly 
aware of this, and doubted if he would take the risk. 
A single man with three dogs ought to run away 
from three pursuers with only four. Therefore, 


238 THE SILENT PLACES 

the old woodsman thought himself justified in rely- 
ing at least on the meagre opportunity a stern chase 
would afford. 

He did not know where the Indian would be likely 
to lead him. The checker-board of the wilderness 
lay open. As he had before reflected, it would be 
only too easy for Jingoss to keep between himself 
and his pursuers the width of the game. The 
Northwest was wide; the plains great; the Rocky 
Mountains lofty and full of hiding-places, — it 
seemed likely he would turn west. Or the deep for- 
ests of the other coast offered unlimited opportuni- 
ties of concealment, — the east might well be his 
choice. It did not matter particularly. Into either 
it would not be difficult to follow ; and Sam hoped 
in either to gain a sight of his prize before the snow 
melted. 

The Indian, however, after the preliminary twists 
and turns of indecision, turned due north. Fo’* 
nearly a week Sam thought this must be a ruse, or a 
cast by which to gain some route known to Jingoss. 
But the forests began to dwindle; the muskegs to 
open. The Land of Little Sticks could not be far 
distant, and beyond them was the Barren Grounds. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 239 
The old woodsman knew the defaulter for a reckless 
and determined man. Gradually the belief, and at 
last the conviction, forced itself on him that here he 
gamed with no cautious player. The Indian was 
laying on the table the stakes of life or death. He, 
too, had realised that the test must be one of endur- 
ance, and in the superbness of his confidence he had 
determined not to play with preliminary half meas- 
ures, but to apply at once the supreme test to him- 
self and his antagonists. He was heading directly 
out into the winter desert, where existed no game 
but the single big caribou herd whose pastures 
were so wide that to meet them would be like en- 
countering a single school of dolphins in all the 
seven seas. 

As soon as Sam discovered this, he called Dick’s 
attention to it. 

« We’re in for it,” said he, “he’s going to take us 
out on the Barren Grounds and lose us.” 

“If he can,” supplemented Dick. 

“Yes, if he can,” agreed Sam. After a moment he 
went on, pursuing his train of thought aloud, as 
was his habit. 

“He’s thinking he has more grub than we have ; 


240 THE SILENT PLACES 

that’s about what it amounts to. He thinks he can 
tire us out. The chances are we’ll find no more 
game. We’ve got to go on what we have. He’s 
probably got a sledge-load ; — and so have we ; — but 
he has only one to feed, and three dogs, and we have 
three and four dogs.” 

“That’s all right; he’s our Injun,” replied Dick, 
voicing the instinct of race superiority which, after 
all, does often seem to accomplish the impossible. 
“It’s too bad we have the girl with us,” he added, 
after a moment. 

“Yes, it is,” agreed Sam. Yet it was most signifi- 
cant that now it occurred to neither of them that she 
might be abandoned. 

The daily supply of provisions was immediately 
cut to a minimum, and almost at once they felt the 
effects. The north demands hard work and the 
greatest resisting power of the vitality ; the vitality 
calls on the body for fuel; and the body in turn 
insists on food. It is astonishing to see what quan- 
tities of nourishment can be absorbed without ap- 
parent effect. And when the food is denied, but the 
vitality is still called upon, it is equally astonishing 
to see how quickly it takes its revenge. Our travel- 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 241 
lers became lean in two days, dizzy in a week, tired 
to the last fibre, on the edge of exhaustion. They 
took care, however, not to step over that edge. 

Sam Bolton saw to it. His was not only the 
bodily labour, but the mental anxiety. His attitude 
was the tenseness of a helmsman in a heavy wind, 
quivering to the faintest indication, ready to give 
her all she will bear, but equally ready to luff this 
side of disaster. Only his equable mind could have 
resisted an almost overpowering impulse toward 
sporadic bursts of speed or lengthening of hours. 
He had much of this to repress in Dick. But on the 
other hand he watched zealously against the need- 
less waste of even a single second. Every expedient 
his long woods life or his native ingenuity suggested 
he applied at once to the problem of the greatest 
speed, the least expenditure of energy to a given 
end, the smallest consumption of food compatible 
with the preservation of strength. The legitimate 
travel of a day might amount to twenty or thirty 
miles. Sam added an extra five or ten to them. And 
that five or ten he drew from the living tissues of his 
very life. They were a creation, made from noth- 
ing, given a body by the individual genius of the 


242 THE SILENT PLACES 

man. The drain cut down his nervous energy, made 
him lean, drew the anxious lines of an incipient ex- 
haustion across his brow. 

At first, as may be gathered, the advantages of 
the game seemed to be strongly in the Indian’s fa- 
vour. The food supply, the transportation facili- 
ties, and advantage of position in case game should 
be encountered were all his. Against him he need 
count seriously only the offset of dogged Anglo- 
Saxon grit. But as the travel defined itself, certain 
compensations made themselves evident. 

Direct warfare was impossible to him. He pos- 
sessed only a single-barrelled muzzle-loading gun 
of no great efficiency. In case of ambush he might, 
with luck, be able to kill one of his pursuers, but he 
would indubitably be captured by the other. He 
Vvould be unable to approach them at night because 
of their dogs. His dog-team was stronger, but with 
it he had to break trail, which the others could util- 
ise without further effort. Even should his position 
in advance bring him on game, without great luck, 
he would be unable to kill it, for he was alone and 
could not leave his team for long. And his very 
swiftness in itself would react against him, for h^ 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 243 
was continually under the temptation daily to ex- 
ceed by a little his powers. 

These considerations the white men at first could 
not see; and so, logically, they were more encour- 
aged by them when at last they did appear. And 
then in turn, by natural reaction when the glow had 
died, the great discouragement of the barren places 
fell on their spirits. They plodded, seeing no fur- 
ther than their daily necessity of travel. They 
plodded, their eyes fixed to the trail, which led al- 
ways on toward the pole star, undeviating, as a 
deer flies in a straight line hoping to shake off the 
wolves. 

The dense forest growth was succeeded in time 
by the low spruce and poplar thickets ; these in turn 
by the open reaches planted like a park with the 
pointed firs. Then came the Land of Little Sticks, 
and so on out into the vast whiteness of the true 
North, where the trees are liliputian and the spaces 
gigantic beyond the measures of the earth; where 
living things dwindle to the significance of black 
specks on a limitless field of white, and the aurora 
crackles and shoots and spreads and threatens like 
a great inimical and magnificent spirit. 


244 THE SILENT PLACES 

The tendency seemed towarcT a mighty simplifica* 
tion, as though the complexities of the world were 
reverting toward their original philosophic unity. 
The complex summer had become simple autumn; 
the autumn, winter; now the very winter itself was 
apparently losing its differentiations of bushes and 
trees, hills and valleys, streams and living things. 
The growths were disappearing ; the hills were flat- 
tening toward the great northern wastes; the rare 
creatures inhabiting these barrens took on the col- 
our of their environment. The ptarmigan matched 
the snow, — the fox, — the ermine. They moved 
either invisible or as ghosts. 

Little by little such dwindling of the materials 
for diverse observation, in alliance with the too- 
severe labour and the starving, brought about a 
strange concentration of ideas. The inner world 
seemed to undergo the same process of simplification 
as the outer. Extraneous considerations disap- 
peared. The entire cosmos of experience came to 
be an expanse of white, themselves, and the Trail. 
These three reacted one on the other, and outside of 
them there was no reaction. 

In the expanse of white was no food: their food 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 245 
was dwindling; the Trail led on into barren lands 
where no food was to be had. That was the circle 
that whirled insistent in their brains. 

At night they sank down, felled by the sheer bur- 
den of weariness, and no matter how exhausted they 
might be the Trail continued, springing on with the 
same apparently tireless energy toward its unknown 
goal in the North. Gradually they lost sight of the 
ultimate object of their quest. It became obscureci 
by the immediate object, and that was the following 
of the Trail. They forgot that a man had made it, 
or if for a moment it did occur to them that it was 
the product of some agency outside of and above 
itself, that agent loomed vaguely as a mysterious, 
extra-human power, like the winds or the cold or the 
great Wilderness itself. It did not seem possible 
that he could feel the need for food, for rest, that 
ever his vital forces could wane. In the north was 
starvation for them, a starvation to which they drew 
ever nearer day by day, but irresistibly the notion 
obsessed them that this forerunner, the forerunner 
of the Trail, proved no such material necessities, 
that he drew his sustenance from his environment in 
some mysterious manner not to be understood. Al* 


246 THE SILENT PLACES 

ways on and on and on the Trail was destined to 
lead them until they died, and then the maker of it, 
— not Jingoss, not the Weasel, the defaulter, the 
man of flesh and blood and nerves and thoughts and 
the capacities for suffering, — but a being elusive 
as the aurora, an embodiment of that dread coun- 
try, a servant of the unfriendly North, would re- 
turn as he had done. 

Over the land lay silence. The sea has its under- 
tone on the stillest nights ; the woods are quiet with 
an hundred lesser noises ; but here was absolute, ter- 
rifying, smothering silence, — the suspension of all 
sound, even the least, — looming like a threatening 
cloud larger and more dreadful above the cowering 
imagination. The human soul demanded to shriek 
aloud in order to preserve its sanity, and yet a whis- 
per uttered over against the heavy portent of this 
universal stillness seemed a profanation that left 
the spirit crouched beneath a fear of retribution. 
And then suddenly the aurora, the only privileged 
voice, would crackle like a silken banner. 

At first the world in the vastness of its spaces 
seemed to become bigger and bigger. Again 
abruptly it resumed its normal proportions, but 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 247 
they, the observers of it, had been struck small. To 
their own minds they seemed like little black insects 
crawling painfully. In the distance these insects 
crawled was a disproportion to the energy expend- 
ed, a disproportion disheartening, filling the soul 
with the despair of an accomplishment that could 
mean anything in the following of that which made 
the Trail. 

Always they ate pemmican. Of this there re- 
mained a fairly plentiful supply, but the dog meat 
was running low. It was essential that the team be 
w'ell fed. Dick or Sam often travelled the entire 
day a quarter of a mile one side or the other, hoping 
thus to encounter game, but without much success. 
A fox or so, a few ptarmigan, that was all. These 
they saved for the dogs. Three times a day they 
boiled tea and devoured the little square of pem- 
mican. It did not supply the bulk their digestive 
organs needed, and became in time almost nausea- 
tingly unpalatable, but it nourished. That, after 
all, was the main thing. The privation carved the 
flesh from their muscles, carved the muscles them- 
selves to leanness. 

But in spite of the best they could do, the dog 


248 THE SILENT PLACES 

feed ran out. There remained but one thing to do. 
Already the sledge was growing lighter, and three 
dogs would be quite adequate for the work. They 
killed Wolf, the surly and stupid “husky.” Every 
scrap they saved, even to the entrails, which froze at 
once to solidity. The remaining dogs were put on 
half rations, just sufficient to keep up their strength. 
The starvation told on their tempers. Especially 
did Claire, the sledge-dog, heavy with young, and 
ravenous to feed their growth, wander about like a 
spirit, whining mournfully and sniffing the barren 
breeze. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 


The journey extended over a month. The last three 
weeks of it were starvation. At first this meant 
merely discomfort and the bearing of a certain 
amount of pain. Later it became acute suffering. 
Later still it developed into a necessity for proving 
what virtue resided in the bottom of these men’s 
souls. 

Perforce now they must make a choice of what 
ideas they would keep. Some things must be given 
up, just as some things had to be discarded when 
they had lightened the sledge. All the lesser lum- 
ber had long since gone. Certain bigger things 
still remained. 

They held grimly to the idea of catching the Ind- 
ian. Their natural love of life held tenaciously to 
a hope of return. An equally natural hope clung 
to the ridiculous idea that the impossible might hap- 
pen, that the needle should drop from the haystack, 
that the caribou might spring into their view from 
24.9 


250 THE SILENT PLACES 

the emptiness of space. Now it seemed that they 

must make a choice between the first two. 

“Dick,” said Bolton, solemnly, “we’ve mighty 
little pemmican left. If we turn around now, it’ll 
just about get us back to the woods. If we go on 
farther, we’ll have to run into more food, or we’ll 
never get out.” 

“I knew it,” replied Dick. 

“Well.?” 

Dick looked at him astonished. “Well, what.?” 
he inquired. 

“Shall we give it up?” 

“Give it cried the young man. “Of course 
not; what you thinking of.?” 

“There’s the caribou,” suggested Sam, doubt- 
fully ; “or maybe Jingoss has more grub than he’s 
going to need. It’s a slim chance.” 

They still further reduced the ration of pemmi- 
can. The malnutrition began to play them tricks. 
It dizzied their brains, swarmed the vastness with 
hordes of little, dancing black specks like mosqui- 
toes. In the morning every muscle of their bodies 
was stiffened to the consistency of rawhide, and the 
movements necessary to loosen the fibres became an 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 251 

agony hardly to be endured. Nothing of voluntary 
consciousness remained, could remain, but the effort 
of lifting the feet, driving the dogs, following the 
Trail ; but involuntary consciousness lent them 
strange hallucinations. They saw figures moving 
across the snow, but when they steadied their vision, 
nothing was there. 

They began to stumble over nothing; occasion- 
ally to fall. In this was added effort, but more par- 
ticularly added annoyance. They had continually 
to watch their footsteps. The walking was no 
longer involuntary, but they had definitely to think 
of each movement necessary to the step, and this 
gave them a further reason for preoccupation, for 
concentration. Dick’s sullenness returned, more 
terrible than in the summer. He went forward with 
his head down, refusing to take notice of anything. 
He walked : that was to him the whole of existence. 

Once reverting analogously to his grievance of 
that time, he mentioned the girl, saying briefly that 
soon they must all die, and it was better that she 
die now. Perhaps her share of the pemmican 
would bring them to their quarry. The idea of 
return — not abandoned, but persistently ignored — 


252 THE SILENT PLACES 

thrust into prominence this other, — to come to 
close quarters with the man they pursued, to die 
grappled with him, dragging him down to the 
same death by which these three perished. But 
Sam would have none of it, and Dick easily 
dropped the subject, relapsing into his grim 
monomania of pursuit. 

In Dick’s case even the hope of coming to grap- 
ples was fading. He somehow had little faith in 
his enemy. The man was too intangible, too difficult 
to gauge. Dick had not caught a glimpse of the 
Indian since the pursuit began. The young man 
realised perfectly his own exhaustion ; but he had 
no means of knowing wdiether or not the Indian was 
tiring. His faith waned, though his determination 
did not. Unconsciously he substituted this mono- 
mania of pursuit. It took the place of the faith he 
felt slipping from him — the faith that ever he 
would see the fata morgana luring him out into the 
Silent Places. 

Soon it became necessary to kill another dog. 
Dick, with a remnant of his old feeling, pleaded 
for the life of Billy, his pet. Sam would not enter- 
tain for a moment the destruction of the hound. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 253 
There remained only Claire, the sledge-dog, with 
her pathetic brown eyes, and her affectionate ways 
of the female dog. They went to kill her, and dis- 
covered her in the act of defending the young to 
which she had just given birth. Near at hand 
crouched Mack and Billy, their eyes red with fam- 
ine, their jaws a-slaver, eager to devour the new- 
born puppies. And in the grim and dreadful sight 
Sam Bolton seemed at last to glimpse the face of 
his terrible antagonist. 

They beat back the dogs, and took the puppies. 
These they killed and dressed. Thus Claire’s life 
was bought for her by the sacrifice of her prog- 
eny. 

But even that was a temporary respite. She fell 
in her turn, and was devoured, to the last scrap of 
her hide. Dick again intervened to save Billy, but 
failed. Sam issued his orders the more perempto- 
rily as he felt his strength waning, and realised the 
necessity of economising every ounce of it, even to 
that required in the arguing of expedients. Dick 
yielded with slight resistance, as he had yielded in 
the case of the girl. All matters but the one were 
rapidly becoming unimportant to him. That con- 


254 THE SILENT PLACES 

centration of his forces which represented the 
weapon of his greatest utility, was gradually tak- 
ing place. He was becoming an engine of dogged 
determination, an engine whose burden the older 
man had long carried on his shoulders, but which 
now he was preparing to launch when his own 
strength should be gone. 

At last there was left but the one dog. Mack, the 
hound, with the wrinkled face and the long, hang- 
ing ears. He developed unexpected endurance and 
an entire willingness, pulling strongly on the sledge, 
waiting in patience for his scanty meal, searching 
the faces of his masters with his wise brown eyes, 
dumbly sympathetic in a trouble whose entirety he 
could not understand. 

The two men took turns in harnessing themselves 
to the sledge with Mack. The girl followed at the 
gee-pole. 

May-may-gwan showed the endurance of a man. 
She made no complaint. Always she followed, and 
followed with her mind alert. Where Dick shut 
obstinately his faculties within the bare necessity of 
travel, she and her other companion were contin- 
ually alive to the possibilities of expedient. This 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 255 

constituted an additional slight but constant drain 
on their vital forces. 

Starvation gained on them. Perceptibly their 
strength was waning. Dick wanted to kill the other 
dog. His argument was plausible. The toboggan 
was now very light. The men could draw it. They 
would have the dog-meat to recruit their strength. 

Sam shook his head. Dick insisted. He even 
threatened force. But then the woodsman roused 
his old-time spirit and fairly beat the young man 
into submission by the vehemence of his anger. 
The effort left him exhausted. He sank back into 
himself, and refused, in the apathy of weariness, 
to give any explanation. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 


By now it was the first week in March. The 
weather began to assume a new aspect. During the 
winter months it had not snowed, for the moisture 
had all been squeezed from the air, leaving it crisp, 
brilliant, sparkling. Now the sun, long hesitant, at 
last began to swing up the sky. Far south the 
warmer airs of spring were awakening the Kansas 
fields. Here in the barren country the steel sky 
melted to a haze. During the day, when the sun 
was up, the surface of the snow even softened a lit- 
tle, and a very perceptible warmth allowed them to 
rest, their parkas thrown back, without discomfort. 

The men noticed this, and knew it as the precur- 
sor of the spring snow-fall. Dick grew desperately 
uneasy, desperately anxious to push on, to catch 
up before the complete obliteration of the trail, 
when his resources would perforce run out for lack 
of an object to which to apply them. He knew per- 
fectly well that this must be what the Indian had 
256 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 257 

anticipated, the reason why he had dared to go out 
into the barren grounds, and to his present helpless 
lack of a further expedient the defaulter’s confi- 
dence in the natural sequence seemed only too well 
justified. Sam remained inscrutable. 

The expected happened late one afternoon. All 
day the haze had thickened, until at last, without 
definite transition, it had become a cloud covering 
the entire sky. Then it had snowed. The great, 
clogging flakes sifted down gently, ziz-zagging 
through the air like so many pieces of paper. They 
impacted softly against the world, standing away 
from each other and from the surface on which they 
alighted by the full stretch of their crystal arms. 
In an hour three inches had fallen. The hollows 
and depressions were filling to the level; the Trail 
was growing indistinct. 

Dick watched from the shelter of a growing de- 
spair. Never had he felt so helpless. This thing 
was so simple, yet so effective ; and nothing he could 
do would nullify its results. As sometimes in a crisis 
a man will give his whole attention to a trivial 
thing, so Dick fastened his gaze on a single snow- 
shoe track on the edge of a covered bowlder. By it 


258 THE SILENT PLACES 

he gauged the progress of the storm. When at last 
even his imagination could not differentiate it from 
the surface on either side, he looked up. The visible 
world was white and smooth and level. No faintest 
trace of the Trail remained. East, west, north, 
south, lay uniformity. The Indian had disap- 
peared utterly from the face of the earth. 

The storm lightened and faint streaks of light 
shot through the clouds. 

“Well, let’s be moving,” said Sam. 

“Moving where?” demanded Dick, bitterly. 

But the old man led forward the hound. 

“Remember the lake where we lost the track of 
that Chippewa?” he inquired. “Well, a foot of 
light snow is nothing. Mush on. Mack !” 

The hound sniffed deep, filling his nostrils with 
the feather snow, which promptly he sneezed out. 
Then he swung off easily on his little dog-trot, never 
at fault, never hesitant, picking up the turns and 
twistings of the Indian’s newer purpose as surely 
as a mind-reader the concealed pin. 

For Jingoss had been awaiting eagerly this fall 
of snow, as this immediate change of direction 
showed. He was sure that now they could no longer 



The liound sniffed deep^ filling his nostrils with the 
feather snow 



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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 259 

follow him. It was for this he had lured them far- 
ther and farther into the wilderness, waiting for 
the great enemy of them all to cover his track, to 
throw across his vanishing figure her ultimate denial 
of their purposes. At once, convinced of his safety, 
he turned to the west and southwest. 

At just what moment he discovered that he was 
still followed it was im.possible to determine. But 
very shortly a certain indecision could be read in the 
signs of his journeying. He turned to the south, 
changed his mind, doubled on his tracks like a rab- 
bit, finally, his purpose decided, he shot away on 
the direct line again for the frozen reaches of deso- 
lation in the north. 

The moment’s flicker of encouragement lighted 
by the success of the dog, fell again to blackness as 
the three faced further incursion into the land of 
starvation. They had allowed themselves for a mo- 
ment to believe that the Indian might now have 
reached the limit of his intention; that now he 
might turn toward a chance at least of life. But 
this showed that his purpose, or obstinacy or 
madness remained unchanged, and this newer 
proof indicated that it possessed a depth of de- 


260 THE SILENT PLACES 

termination that might lead to any extreme. They 
had to readjust themselves to the idea. Perforce 
they had to extend their faith, had to believe in the 
caribou herds. From every little rise they looked 
abroad, insisting on a childish confidence in the ex- 
istence of game. They could not afford to take the 
reasonable view, could not afford to estimate the 
chances against their encountering in all that vast- 
ness of space the single pin-point where grazed 
abundance. 

From time to time, thereafter, the snow fell. On 
the mere fact of their persistence it had litle effect; 
but it clogged their snow-shoes, it wore them down. 
A twig tripped them; and the efforts of all three 
were needed to aid one to rise. A dozen steps were 
all they could accomplish without rest; a dozen 
short, stumbling steps that were, nevertheless, so 
many mile-posts in the progress to their final ex- 
haustion. When one fell, he lay huddled, unable 
at once to rally his vital forces to attempt the exer- 
tion of regaining his feet. The day’s journey was 
pitifully short, pitifully inadequate to the impe- 
rious demands of that onward-leading Trail, and 
yet each day’s journey lessened the always desper- 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 261 

ate chance of a return to the game country. In 
spite of that, it never again crossed their minds that 
it might be well to abandon the task. They might 
die, but it would be on the Trail, and the death 
clutch of their fingers would still be extended to- 
ward the north, where dwelt tlieir enemy, and into 
whose protective arms their quarry had fied. 

As his strength ebbed Dick Herron’s energies 
concentrated more and more to his monomania of 
pursuit. The round, full curves of his body had 
shrunken to angles, the fresh tints of his skin had 
turned to leather, the flesh of his cheeks had sunken, 
his teeth showed in the drawing back of his lips. All 
these signs spoke of exhaustion and of ultimate col- 
lapse. But as the case grew more desperate, he 
seemed to discover in some unsuspected quality of 
his spirit, or perhaps merely of his youth, a fitful 
and wonderful power. He collapsed from weak- 
ness, to be sure ; but in a moment his iron will, ap- 
parently angered to incandescence, got him to his 
feet and on his way with an excess of energy. He 
helped the others. He urged the dog. And then 
slowly the fictitious vigour ran out. The light, the 
red, terrible glare of madness, faded from his eye ; 


262 THE SILENT PLACES 

it became glazed and lifeless ; his shoulders dropped ; 

his head hung ; he fell. 

Gradually in the transition period between the 
darkness of winter and the coming of spring the 
world took on an unearthly aspect. It became an 
inferno of light without corresponding warmth, of 
blinding, flaring, intolerable light reflected from 
the snow. It became luminous, as though the ghosts 
of the ancient days of incandescence had revisited 
the calendar. It was raw, new, huge, uncouth, em- 
bryonic, adapted to the production of tremendous 
monsters, unfit for the habitation of tiny men with 
delicate physical and mental adjustments. Only 
to the mind of a Caliban could it be other than ter- 
rifying. Things grew to a size out of all reason. 
The horizon was infinitely remote, lost in snow- 
mists, fearful with the large-blown mirages of lit- 
tle things. Strange and indeterminate somethings 
menaced on all sides, menaced in greater and greater 
threat, until with actual proximity they myste- 
riously disappeared, leaving behind them as a blind 
to conceal their real identity such small matters as 
a stunted shrub, an exposed rock, the shadow of a 
wind-rift on the snow. And low in the sky danced 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 263 

in unholy revel the suns, sometimes as many as eight 
of them, gazing with the abandoned red eyes of de- 
bauchees on the insignificant travellers groping 
feebly amid phantasmagoria. 

The great light, the dazzle, the glitter, the in- 
cessant movement of the mirages, the shining of the 
mock suns, all these created an impression of heat, 
of light, of the pleasantness of a warmed land. Yet 
still persisted, only modified by the sun, the cold of 
the northern winter. And this denial of appearance 
sufficed to render unreal all the round globe, so that 
at any moment the eye anticipated its crumbling 
like a dust apple, with its cold, its vastness, its emp- 
tiness, its hunger, its indecently many suns, leaving 
the human soul in the abyss of space. The North 
threw over them the power of her spell, so that to 
them the step from life to death seemed a short, an 
easy, a natural one to take. 

Nevertheless their souls made struggle, as did 
their bodies. They fought down the feeling of 
illusion just as they had fought down the feelings 
of hunger, of weariness, and of cold. Sam fash- 
ioned rough wooden spectacles with tiny transverse 
slits through which to look, and these they assumed 


264. THE SILENT PLACES 

against the snow-blindness. They kept a sharp 
watch for freezing. Already their faces were 
blackened and parched by the frost, and cracked 
through the thick skin down to the raw. Sam had 
frozen his great toe, and had with his knife cut to 
the bone in order to prevent mortification. They 
tried to talk a little in order to combat by unison 
of spirit the dreadful influence the North was bring- 
ing to bear. They gained ten feet as a saint of the 
early church gained his soul for paradise. 

Now it came to the point where they could no 
longer afford to eat their pemmican. They boiled 
it, along with strips of the rawhide dog-harness, 
and drank the soup. It sufficed not at all to ap- 
pease the pain of their hunger, nor appreciably did 
it give them strength, but somehow it fed the vital 
spark. They endured fearful cramps. So far had 
their faculties lost vigour that only by a distinct 
effort of the will could they focus their eyes to the 
examination of any object. 

Their obsessions of mind were now two. They 
followed the Trail; they looked for the caribou 
herds. After a time the improbability became ten- 
uous. They actually expected the impossible, felt 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 265 

defrauded at not obtaining it, cried out weakly 
against their ill fortune in not encountering the 
herd that was probably two thousand miles away. 
In its withholding the North seemed to play un- 
fairly. She denied them the chances of the game. 

And the Trail ! Not the freezing nor the star- 
vation nor the illusion were so potent in the deeper 
discouragement of the spirit as that. Always it led 
on. They could see it ; they could see its direction ; 
that was all. Tireless it ran on and on and on. For 
all they knew the Indian, hearty and confident in 
his wilderness strength, might be watching them at 
every moment, laughing at the feeble thirty feet 
their pain bought them, gliding on swiftly in 
an hour farther than they could travel in a day. 
This possibility persisted until, in their minds, it 
became the fact. They endowed their enemy with 
all they themselves lacked ; with strength, with 
swiftness, with the sustenance of life. Y"et never 
for a moment did it occur to them to abandon the 
pursuit. 

Sam was growing uncertain in his movements; 
Dick was plainly going mad. The girl followed; 
that was all one could say, for whatever suffering 


266 THE SILENT PLACES 

she proved was hidden beneath race stolidity, and 

more nobly beneath a great devotion. 

And then late one afternoon they came to a 
bloody spot on the snow. Here Jingoss had killed. 
Here he had found what had been denied them, 
what they needed so sorely. The North was on his 
side. He now had meat in plenty, and meat meant 
strength, and strength meant swiftness, and swift- 
ness meant the safety of this world for him and the 
certainty of the next for them. The tenuous hope 
that had persisted through all the psychological 
pressure the North had brought to bear, the hope 
that they had not even acknowledged to themselves, 
the hope based merely on the circumstance that they 
did not knom, was routed by this one fact. Now 
they could no longer shelter behind the flimsy screen 
of an ignorance of their enemy’s condition. They 
knew. The most profound discouragement de- 
scended on them. 

But even yet they did not yield to the great an- 
tagonist. The strength of meat lacked them: the 
strength of despair remained. A rapid dash might 
bring them to grapples. And somewhere in the 
depths of their indomitable spirits, somewhere in 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 267 

the line of their hardy, Anglo-Saxon descent, they 
knew they would find the necessary vitality. 

Stars glittered like sparks on polished steel. On 
the northwest wind swooped the chill of the winter’s 
end, and in that chill was the breath of the North. 
Sam Bolton, crushed by the weight of a great ex- 
haustion, recognised the familiar menace, and raised 
his head, gazing long from glazed eyes out into the 
Silent Places. 

“Not yet !” he said aloud. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 


But the next morning he was unable to rise. The 
last drop of his vitality had run out. At length 
the connection between his will and his body had 
been severed, so that the latter was no longer under 
his command. After the first moment he knew well 
enough what this meant, knew that here he must 
die, here he must lie crushed finally under the sheer 
weight of his antagonist. It was as though she, 
the great North, had heard his defiant words the 
night before, and thus proved to him their empti- 
ness. 

And yet the last reserves of the old man’s pur- 
pose were not yet destroyed. Here he must remain, 
it is true, but still he possessed next his hand the hu- 
man weapon he had carried so far and so painfully 
by the exercise of his ingenuity and the genius of 
his long experience. He had staggered under its 
burden as far as he could ; now was the moment for 
launching it. He called the young man to him. 

968 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 26*9 

“I cannot go on,” said he, in gasps. “Leave the 
sledge. Take the dog. Do not lose him. Travel 
fast. You must get him by to-morrow night. 
Sleep some to-night. Travel fast.” 

Dick nodded. He understood. Already the 
scarlet hate, the dogged mad glare of a set purpose 
was glazing his vision. It was the sprint at the end 
of the race. He need no longer save himself. 

He took a single blanket and the little shreds of 
dog meat that remained. Some of the pemmican, 
a mere scrap, he left with Sam. Mack he held in 
leash. 

“I will live five days,” went on Sam, “perhaps six. 
I will try to live. If you should come back in that 
time, — with meat — the caribou — you understand.” 
His voice trailed away, unwilling to mock the face 
of probability with such a chance. 

Dick nodded again. He had nothing to say. He 
wrung the old man’s hand and turned away. 

Mack thrust his nose forward. They started. 

Sam, left alone, rolled himself again in his thick 
coverings under the snow, which would protect him 
from the night cold. There he would lie absolutely 
motionless, hoarding the drops of his life. From 


270 THE SILENT PLACES 

time to time, at long intervals, he would taste the 
pemmican. And characteristically enough, his re- 
gret, his sorrow, was, not that he must be left to 
perish, not even that he must acknowledge himself 
beaten, but that he was deprived of the chance for 
this last desperate dash before death stooped. 

When Dick stepped out on the trail, May-may- 
gwan followed. After a moment he took cogni- 
sance of the crunch of her snow-shoes behind him. 
He turned and curtly ordered her back. She per- 
sisted. Again he turned, his face nervous with all 
the strength he had summoned for the final effort, 
shouting at her hoarsely, laying on her the anger 
of his command. She seemed not to hear him. He 
raised his fist and beat her, hitting her again and 
again, finally reaching her face. She went down 
silently, without even a moan. But when he stared 
back again, after the next dozen steps, she had 
risen and was still tottering on along the Trail. 

He threw his hands up with a gesture of aban- 
donment. Then without a word, grim and terrible, 
he put his head down and started. 

He never looked back. Madness held him. 
Finesse, saving, the crafty utilising of small advan- 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 271 
tages had had their day. It was the moment for 
brute strength. All day he swung on in a swirl of 
snow, tireless. The. landscape swam about him, the 
white glare searched out the inmost painful recesses 
of his brain. He knew enough to keep his eyes shut 
most of the time, trusting to Mack. At noon he 
divided accurately the entire food supply with the 
animal. At night he fasted. The two, man and 
dog, slept huddled close together for the sake of the 
warmth. At midnight the girl crept in broken and 
exhausted. 

The next day Dick was as wonderful. A man 
strong in meat could not have travelled so. The 
light snow whirled behind him in a cloud. The wind 
of his going strained the capote from his emaciated 
face. So, in the nature of the man, he would go 
until the end. Then he would give out all at once, 
would fall from full life to complete dissolution of 
forces. Behind him, pitifully remote, pitifully 
bent, struggling futilely, obsessed by a mania as 
strong as that of these madmen who persisted even 
beyond the end of all things, was the figure of the 
girl. She could not stand upright, she could not 
breathe, yet she, too, followed the Trail, that dread 


272 THE SILENT PLACES 

symbol of so many hopes and ideals and despairs. 
Dick did not notice her, did not remember her ex- 
istence, any more than he remembered the existence 
of Sam Bolton, of trees, of streams, of summer and 
warm winds, of the world, of the devil, of God, 
of himself. 

All about him the landscape swayed like mist; 
the suns danced indecent revel ; specks and blotches, 
the beginning of snow-blindness, swam grotesquely 
projected into a world less real than they. Living 
things moved everywhere. Ordinarily the man paid 
no attention to them, knowing them for what they 
were, but once, warned by some deep and subtle in- 
stinct, he made the effort to clear his vision and saw 
a fox. By another miracle he killed it. The car- 
cass he divided with his dog. He gave none of it to 
the girl. 

By evening of the second day he had not yet 
overtaken his quarry. But the trail was evidently 
fresher, and the fox’s meat gave him another 
chance. He slept, as before, with Mack the hound; 
and, as before, May-may-gwan crept in hours later 
to fall exhausted. 

And over the three figures, lying as dead, the 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 273 
North whirred in the wind, waiting to stoop, tri- 
umphing, glorying that she had brought the boasts 
of men to nothing. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 


The next morning was the third day. There was no 
delay in getting started. All Dick had to do was to 
roll his blanket. He whirled on, still with his im- 
petuous, fictitious vigour unimpaired. The girl 
staggered after him ten feet, then pitched forward. 
He turned uncertainly. She reached out to touch 
him. Her eyes said a farewell. It was the end. 

Dick stood a moment, his eyes vague. Then me- 
chanically he put his head down, mechanically he 
looked for the Trail, mechanically he shot away 
alone, alone except for the faithful, gaunt hound, 
the only thing that remained to him out of a whole 
world of living beings. 

To his fevered vision the Trail was becoming 
fresher. Every step he took gave him the impres- 
sion of so much gained, as though the man he was 
in pursuit of was standing still waiting to be taken. 
For the first time in months the conviction of abso- 
lute success took possession of him. His sight 
274 


CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 275 
cleared, his heart beat strong, his whole being quiv- 
ered with vigour. The illusion of the North faded 
away like a mist. The world was a flat plain of 
snow, with here and there a stunted spruce, knee- 
high, protruding above it, and with here and there 
an inequality of hidden bowlders and rounded 
knolls. Far off was the horizon, partially hidden 
in the normal snow-fog of this time of year. All 
objects were stationary, solid, permanent. Even 
the mock suns were only what was to be expected in 
so high a latitude. Dick was conscious of arguing 
these things to himself with extraordinary accuracy 
of logic. He proved a glow of happiness in the 
clarity of his brain, in the ease of his body, in the 
certainty of his success. The candle flared clear 
before its expiration. 

For some moments he enjoyed this feeling of 
well-being, then a disturbing element insinuated it- 
self. At first it was merely an uneasiness, which he 
could not place, a vague and nebulous irritation, a 
single crumpled rose-leaf. Then it grew to the 
proportions of a menace which banked his horizon 
with thunder, though the sun still shone overhead. 
Finally it became a terror, clutching him at the 


276 THE SILENT PLACES 

throat. He seemed to feel the need of identifying 
it. By an effort he recognised it as a lack. Some- 
thing was missing without which there was for him 
no success, no happiness, no well-being, no strength, 
no existence. That something he must find. In the 
search his soul descended again to the region of 
dread, the regions of phantasmagoria. The earth 
heaved and rocked and swam in a sea of cold and 
glaring light. Strange creatures, momentarily 
changing shape and size, glided monstrous across 
the middle distance. The mock suns danced in the 
heavens. 

Twice he stopped short and listened. In his 
brain the lack was defining itself as the lack of a 
sound. It was something he had always been used 
to. Now it had been taken away. The world was 
silent in its deprivation, and the silence stifled him. 
It had been something so usual that he had never 
noticed it; its absence called it to his attention for 
the first time. So far in the circle his mind ran; 
then swung back. He beat his forehead. Great as 
were the sufferings of his body, they were as noth- 
ing compared with these unreal torturings of his 
maddened brain. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 277 

For the third time he stopped, his head sidewise 
in the attitude of listening. At once easily, without 
effort, he knew. All these months behind him had 
sounded the crunch of snow-shoes. All these 
months about him, wrapping him so softly that he 
had never been conscious of it, had been the wor- 
ship of a great devotion. Now they were taken 
away, he missed them. His spirit, great to with- 
stand the hardships of the body, strong to deny it- 
self, so that even at the last he had resisted the 
temptation of hunger and divided with his dog, in 
its weakened condition could not stand the expo- 
sure to the loneliness, to the barren winds of a peo- 
pleless world. 

A long minute he stood, listening, demanding 
against all reason to hear the crunch, crunch, 
crunch that should tell him he was not alone. Then, 
without a glance at the Trail he had followed so 
long, he turned back. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 


The girl was lying face down as he had left her. 
Already the windrow of the snow was beginning to 
form, like the curve of a wave about to break over 
her prostrate body. He sat down beside her, and 
gathered her into his arms, throwing the thick three- 
point blanket with its warm lining over the bent 
forms of both. At once it was as though he had al- 
ways been there, his back to the unceasing winds, a 
permanence in the wilderness. The struggles of the 
long, long trail withdrew swiftly into the past — 
they had never been. And through the unreality 
of this feeling shot a single illuminating shaft of 
truth : never would he find in himself the power to 
take the trail again. The bubbling fever-height 
of his energies suddenly drained away. 

Mack, the hound, lay patiently at his feet. He, 
too, suffered, and he did not understand, but that 
did not matter; his faithfulness could not doubt. 
For a single instant it occurred to the young man 
278 


CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 279 
that he might kill the dog, and so procure nourish- 
ment with which to extricate himself and the girl ; 
but the thought drifted idly through his mind, and 
so on and away. It did not matter. -He could 
never again follow that Trail, and a few days more 
or less 

The girl sighed and opened her eyes. They 
widened. 

“ Jibiwanisi !” she whispered. 

Her eyes remained fixed on his face, puzzling out 
the mere facts. Then all at once they softened. 

“You came back,” she murmured. 

Dick did not reply. He drew her a little closer 
into his arms. 

For a long time they said nothing. Then the 
girl: 

“It has come, Jibiwanisi, we must die,” and after 
a moment, “You came back.” 

She closed her eyes again, happily. 

“Why did you come back.?” she asked after a 
while. 

“I do not know,” said Dick. 

The snow sifted here and there like beach sand. 
Occasionally the dog shook himself free of it, but 


280 THE SILENT PLACES 

over the two human beings it flung, little by little, 
the whiteness of its uniformity, a warm mantle 
against the freezing. They became an integral part 
of the lajidscape, permanent as it, coeval with its 
rocks and hills, ancient as the world, a symbol of ob- 
scure passions and instincts and spiritual beauties 
old as the human race. 

Abruptly Dick spoke, his voice harsh. 

“We die here. Little Sister. I do not regret. I 
have done the best in me. It is well for me to die. 
But this is not your affair. It was not for you to 
give your life. Had you not followed you would 
now be warm in the wigwams of your people. This 
is heavy on my heart.” 

“Was it for this you came back to me?” she in- 
quired. 

Dick considered. “No,” he replied. 

“The south wind blows warm on me,” she said, 
after a moment. 

The man thought her mind wandered with the 
starvation, but this was not the case. Her speech 
had made one of those strange lapses into rhetoric 
so common to the savage peoples. 

“Jibiwanisi,” she went on solemnly, “to me now 


CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 281 
this is a land where the trees are green and the 
waters flow and the sun shines and the fat deer are 
in the grasses. Mj heart sings like the birds. 
What should I care for dying It is well to die 
when one is happy.” 

“Are you happy, May-may-gwan.?” asked 
Dick. 

For answer she raised her eyes to his. Freed of 
the distraction of another purpose, clarified by the 
near approach of death, his spirit looked, and for 
the first time understood. 

“May-may-gwan, I did not know,” said he, 
awed. 

He meant that he had not before perceived her 
love for him. She thought he had not before real- 
ised his love for her. Her own aflPection seemed to 
her as self-evident as the fact that her eyes were 
black. 

“Yes, yes,” she hastened to comfort what she 
supposed must be his distress, “I know. But you 
turned back.” 

She closed her eyes again and appeared to doze in 
a happy dream. The North swooped above them 
like some greedy bird of prey. 


282 THE SILENT PLACES 

Gradually in his isolation and stillness Dick be- 
gan to feel this. It grew on him little by little. 
Within a few hours, by grace of suffering and of 
imminent death, he came into his woodsman’s heri- 
tage of imagination. Men like Sam Bolton gained 
it by patient service, by living, by the slow accu- 
mulations of years, but in essence it remained the 
same. Where before the young man had seen only 
the naked, material facts, now he felt the spiritual 
presence, the calm, ruthless, just, terrible Enemy, 
seeking no combat, avoiding none, conquering with 
a lofty air of predestination, inevitable, mighty. 
His eyes were opened, like the prophet’s of old. 
The North hovered over him almost palpable. In 
the strange borderland of mingled illusion and real- 
ity where now he and starvation dwelt he thought 
sometimes to hear voices, the voices of his enemy’s 
triumph. 

“Is it done.f^” they asked him, insistently. “Is it 
over.? Are you beaten.? Is your stubborn spirit 
at last bowed down, humiliated, crushed.? Do you 
relinquish the prize, — and the struggle? Is it 
done ?” 

The girl stirred slightly in his arms. He fo- 


CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 283 
cussed his eyes. Already the day had passed, and 
the first streamers of the aurora were crackling in 
the sky. They reduced this day, this year, this 
generation of men to a pin-point in time. The 
tragedy enacting itself on the snow amounted to 
nothing. It would soon be over: it occupied but 
one of many, many nights — wherein the aurora 
would crackle and shoot forth and ebb back in pre- 
cisely the same deathful, living way, as though the 
death of it were the death in this world, but the 
life of it were a thing celestial and alien. The mo- 
ment, to these three who perished the most impor- 
tant of all the infinite millions of millions that con- 
stitute time, was absolutely without special mean- 
ing to the wonderful, flaming, unearthly lights of 
the North. 

Mack, the hound, lay in the position he had first 
assumed, his nose between his outstretched fore- 
paws. So he had lain all that day and that night. 
So it seemed he must intend to lie until death took 
him. For on this dreadful journey Mack had risen 
above the restrictions imposed by his status as a 
zoological species, had ceased to be merely a dog, 
and by virtue of steadfastness, of loyalty, of un- 


284 THE SILENT PLACES 

complaining suffering, had entered into the higher 
estate of a living being that has fearlessly done his 
best in the world before his call to leave it. 

The girl opened her eyes. 

“Jibiwanisi,” she said, faintly, “the end is 
come.” 

Agonized, Dick forced himself to consciousness 
of the landscape. It contained moving figures in 
plenty. One after the other he brought them with- 
in the focus of scrutiny and dissolved them into thin 
air. If only the caribou herds 

He looked down again to meet her eyes. 

“Do not grieve. I am happy, Jibiwanisi,” she 
whispered. 

After a little, “I will die first,” and then, “This 
land and that — there must be a border. I will be 
waiting there. I will wait always. I will not go 
into the land until you come. I will wait to see it — 
with you. Oh, Jibiwanisi,” she cried suddenly, 
with a strength and passion in startling contrast to 
her weakness. “I am yours, yours, yours! You 
are mine.” She half raised herself and seized his 
two arms, searching his eyes with terror, trying to 
reassure herself, to drive off the doubts that sud- 


CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 285 
denly had thronged upon her. “Tell me,” she 
shook him by the arm. 

“I am yours,” Dick lied, steadily; “my heart is 
yours, I love you.” 

He bent and kissed her on the lips. She quivered 
and closed her eyes with a deep sigh. 

Ten minutes later she died. 


CHAPTER THIRTY 


This was near the dawn of the fourth day. Dick 
remained always in the same attitude, holding the 
dead girl in his arms. Mack, the hound, lay as al- 
ways, loyal, patient to the last. After the girl’s 
departure the wind fell and a great stillness seemed 
to have descended on the world. 

The young man had lost the significance of his 
position, had forgotten the snow and cold and lack 
of food, had forgotten even the fact of death which 
he was hugging to his breast. His powers, burning 
clear in the spirit, were concentrated on the changes 
taking place within himself. By these things the 
world of manhood was opened to him; he was no 
longer a boy. To most it comes as a slow growth. 
With him it was revelation. The completeness of 
it shook him to the foundations of life. He took no 
account of the certainty of his own destruction. It 
seemed to him, in the thronging of new impressions, 
that he might sit there forever, a buddha of con- 
286 


CHAPTER THIRTY 287 

templation, looking on the world as his maturity 
had readjusted it. 

Never now could he travel the Silent Places as 
he had heretofore, stupidly, blindly, obstinately, 
unthinkingly, worse than an animal in perception. 
The wilderness he could front intelligently, for he 
had seen her face. Never now could he conduct 
himself so selfishly, so brutally, so without consid- 
eration, as though he were the central point of the 
system, as though there existed no other prefer- 
ences, convictions, conditions of being that might 
require the readjustment of his own. He saw these 
others for the first time. Never now could he live 
with his fellow beings in such blindness of their mo- 
tives and the passions of their hearts. His own 
heart, like a lute, was strung to the pitch of hu- 
manity. Never now could he be guilty of such 
harm as he had unthinkingly accomplished on the 
girl. His eyes were opened to human suffering. 
The life of the world beat through his. The com- 
passion of the greater humanity came to him softly, 
as a gift from the portals of death. The full sa- 
vour of it he knew at last, knew that finally he had 
rounded out the circle of his domain. 


288 THE SILENT PLACES 

This was what life required of his last conscious- 
ness. Having attained to it, the greater forces had 
no more concern with him. They left him, a poor, 
weak, naked human soul exposed to the terrors of 
the North. For the first time he saw them in all 
their dreadfulness. They clutched him with the fin- 
gers of cruel suffering so that his body was wracked 
with the tortures of dissolution. They flung before 
his eyes the obscene, unholy shapes of illusion. 
They filled his ears with voices. He was afraid. 
He cowered down, covering his eyes with his fore- 
arms, and trembled, and sobbed, and uttered little 
moans. He was alone in the world, alone with ene- 
mies who had him in their power and would destroy 
him. He feared to look up. The man’s spirit was 
broken. All the accumulated terrors which his res- 
olute spirit had thrust from him in the long months 
of struggle, rushed in on him now that his guard 
was down. They rioted in the empty chambers of 
his soul. 

“Is it done?” they shrieked in triumph. “Is it 
over? Are you beaten ? Is your spirit crushed? Is 
the victory ours? Is it done?” 

Dick shivered and shrank as from a blow. 


CHAPTER THIRTY 289 

“Is it done?” the voices insisted. “Is it over? 
Are you beaten ? Is it done ?” 

The man shrieked aloud in agony. 

“Oh, my God !” he cried. “Oh, yes, yes, yes ! I 
am beaten. I can do nothing. Kill me. It is 
done.” 


CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE 


As though these words were a signal, Mack, the 
hound, who had up to now rested as motionless as 
though frozen to his place, raised himself on his 
haunches and gazed earnestly to the north. 

In the distance Dick seemed to make out an ob- 
ject moving. As he had so often done before, by 
an effort he brought his eyes to focus, expecting, as 
also had happened so often before, that the object 
would disappear. But it persisted, black against 
the snow. Its outlines could not be guessed ; its dis- 
tance could not be estimated, its direction of travel 
could not be determined. Only the bare fact of its 
existence was sure. Somewhere out in the waste it, 
moving, anti^esised these other three black masses 
on the whiteness, the living man, the living animal, 
the dead girl. 

Dick variously identified it. At one moment he 
thought it a marten near at hand ; then it became a 
caribou far away; then a fox between the two. 

290 


CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE 291 

Finally, instantaneously, as though at a bound it 
had leaped from indeterminate mists to the com- 
monplace glare of every day, he saw it was a man. 

The man was moving painfully, lifting each foot 
with an appearance of great effort, stumbling, stag- 
gering sideways from time to time as though in ex- 
treme weakness. Once he fell. Then he recovered 
the upright as though necklaced with great 
weights. His hands were empty of weapons. In 
the uncertainty of his movements he gradually ap- 
proached. 

Now Dick could see the great emaciation of his 
features. The bones of his cheeks seemed to press 
through his skin, which was leathery and scabbed 
and cracked to the raw from much frosting. His 
lips drew tight across his teeth, which grinned in 
the face of exhaustion like the travesty of laughter 
on a skiill. His eyes were lost in the caverns of 
their sockets. His thin nostrils were wide, and 
through them and through the parted lips the 
breath came and went in strong, rasping gasps, 
audible even at this distance of two hundred paces. 
One live thing this wreck of a man expressed. His 
forces were near their end, but such of them as re- 


2^2 THE SILENT PLACES 

mained were concentrated in a determination to go 
on. He moved painfully, but he moved; he stag- 
gered, but he always recovered ; he fell, and it was 
a terrible labour to rise, but always he rose and 
went on. 

Dick Herron, sitting there with the dead girl 
across his knees, watched the man with a strange, 
detached curiosity. His mind had slipped back into 
its hazes. The world of phantasms had resumed 
its sway. He was seeing in this struggling figure 
a vision of himself as he had been, the self he had 
transcended now, and would never again resume. 
Just so he had battled, bringing to the occasion 
every last resource of the human spirit, tearing 
from the deeps of his nature the roots where life 
germinated and throwing them recklessly before 
the footsteps of his endeavour, emptying himself, 
wringing himself to a dry, fibrous husk of a man 
that his Way might be completed. His lips parted 
with a sigh of relief that this was all over. He was 
as an old man whose life, for good or ill, success or 
failure, is done, and who looks from the serenity 
of age on those who have still their youth to spend, 
their years to dole out day by day, painfully, in 


CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE 293 

the intense anxiety of the moral purpose, as the 
price of life. In a spell of mysticism he sat there 
waiting. 

The man plodded on, led by some compelling 
fate, to the one spot in the white immensity where 
were living creatures. When he had approached 
to within fifty paces, Dick could see his eyes. They 
were tight closed. As the young man watched, the 
other opened them, but instantly blinked them shut 
again as though he had encountered the searing of 
a white-hot iron. Dick Herron understood. The 
man had gone snow-blind. 

And then, singularly enough for the first time, 
it was borne in on him who this man was, what was 
the significance of his return. Jingoss, the rene- 
gade O jibway, the defaulter, the maker of the 
dread, mysterious Trail that had led them so far 
into this grim land, Jingoss was blind, and, imag- 
ining himself still going north, still treading me- 
chanically the hopeless way of his escape, had be- 
come bewildered and turned south. 

Dick waited, mysteriously held to inaction, 
watching the useless efforts of this other from the 
vantage ground of a wonderful fatalism, — as the 


294 THE SILENT PLACES 

North had watched him. The Indian plodded dog- 
gedly on, on, on. He entered the circle of the little 
camp. Dick raised his rifle and pressed its muzzle 
against the man’s chest. 

“Stop !” he commanded, his voice croaking harsh 
across the stillness. 

The Indian, with a sob of mingled emotion, in 
which, strangely enough, relief seemed the predom- 
inant note, cbllapsed to the ground. The North, 
insistent on the victory but indifferent to the stake, 
tossed carelessly the prize at issue into the hands of 
her beaten antagonist. 

And then, dim and ghostly, rank after rank, 
across the middle distance drifted the caribou herds. 




^^Stop!” he commanded^ Ins voice croaking Iiarsh 

across the stillness 


■Ei' ^ ■ 

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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO 


It was beyond the middle of summer. The day had 
been hot, but now the velvet night was descending. 
The canoe had turned into the channel at the head 
of the island on which was situated Conjuror’s 
House. The end of the journey was at hand. 

Dick paddled in the bow. His face had regained 
its freshness, but not entirely its former boyish 
roundness. The old air of bravado again sat his 
spirit — a man’s nature persists to the end, and im- 
mortal and unquenchable youth is a gift of the 
gods — but in the depths of his strange, narrow 
eyes was a new steadiness, a new responsibility, the 
well-known, quiet, competent look invariably a 
characteristic of true woodsmen. At his feet lay 
the dog, one red-rimmed eye cocked up at the man 
who had gone down to the depths in his company. 

The Indian Jingoss sat . amidships, his hands 
bound strongly with buckskin thongs, a man of me- 
dium size, broad face, beady eyes with surface 
295 


296 THE SILENT PLACES 

lights. He had cost much: he was to be given no 
chan< e to escape. Always his hands remained bound 
with the buckskin thongs, except at times when Dick 
or Sam stood over him with a rifle. At night his 
wrists were further attached to one of Sam’s. 
Mack, too, understood the situation, and guarded 
as jealously as did his masters. 

Sam wielded the steersman’s paddle. His ap- 
pearance was absolutely unaffected by this one epi- 
sode in a long life. 

They rounded the point into the main sweep of 
the east river, stole down along the bank in the 
gathering twilight, and softly beached their canoe 
below the white buildings of the Factory. With a 
muttered word of command to their captive, they 
disembarked and climbed the steepness of the low 
bluff to the grass-plot above. The dog followed 
at their heels. 

Suddenly the impression of this year, until now 
so vividly a part of the present, was stricken into 
the past, the past of memory. Up to the very in- 
stant of topping the bluff it had been life; now it 
was experience. 

For the Post was absolutely unchanged from that 


CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO 297 

other summer evening of over a year ago when they 
had started out into the Silent Places. The famil- 
iarity of this fact, hitherto, for some strange reason, 
absolutely unexpected, reassured them their places 
in the normal world of living beings. The dead vis- 
ion of the North had left in their spirits a residuum 
of its mysticism. Their experience of her power had 
induced in them a condition of mind when it would 
not have surprised them to discover the world shak- 
en to its foundations, as their souls had been shaken. 
But here were familiar, peaceful things, un- 
changed, indifferent even to the passing of time. 
Involuntarily they drew a deep breath of relief, 
and, without knowing it, re-entered a sanity which 
had not been entirely theirs since the snows of the 
autumn before. 

Over by the guns, indistinct in the falling twi- 
light, the accustomed group of voyageurs and post- 
keepers were chatting, smoking, humming songs in 
the accustomed way. The low velvet band of forest 
against the sky ; the dim squares of the log-houses 
punctuated with their dots of lamplight ; the masses 
of the Storehouse, the stockade, the Factory; the 
long flag-staff like a mast against the stars ; the con- 


298 THE SILENT PLACES 

slant impression of human life and activity, — 
these anodynes of accustomedness steadied these 
men’s faith to the supremacy of human institu- 
tions. 

On the Factory veranda could be dimly made out 
the figures of a dozen men. They sat silent. Occa- 
sionally a cigar glowed brighter for a moment, then 
dulled. Across a single square of subdued light 
the smoke eddied. 

The three travellers approached, Sam Bolton in 
the lead, peering through the dusk in search of his 
chief. In a moment he made him out, sitting, as 
always, square to the world, his head sunk forward, 
his eyes gleaming from beneath the white tufts of 
his ^ebrows. At once the woodsmen mounted the 
steps. 

No one stirred or spoke. Only the smokers sus- 
pended their cigars in mid-air a few inches from 
their faces in the most perfect attitude of attention. 

“Galen Albret,” announced the old woodsman, 
“here is the Ojibway, Jingoss.” 

The Factor stirred slightly; his bulk, the signifi- 
cance of his features lost in obscurity. 

“Me-en-gen !” he called, sharply. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO 299 

The tall, straight figure of his Indian familiar 
glided from the dusk of the veranda’s end. 

“To-morrow at smoke time,” commanded the 
Factor, using the O jibway tongue, “let this man be 
whipped before the people, fifty lashes. Then let 
him be chained to the Tree for the space of one 
week, and let it be written above him in Ojibway 
and in Cree that thus Galen Albret punishes those 
who steal.” 

Without a word Me-en-gan took the defaulter by 
the arm and conducted him away. 

Galen Albret had fallen into a profound silence, 
which no one ventured to break. Dick and Sam, 
uncertain as to whether or not they, too, were dis- 
missed, shifted uneasily. 

“How did you find him.?” demanded the Factor, 
abruptly. 

“We went with old Haukemah’s band down as 
far as the Mattawishguia. There we left them and 
went up stream and over the divide. Dick here 
broke his leg and was laid up for near three months. 
I looked all that district over while he was getting 
well. Then we made winter travel down through 
the Kabinikagam country and looked her over. We 


300 THE SILENT PLACES 

got track of this Jingoss over near the hills, but he 
got wind of us and skipped when we was almost on 
top of him. We took his trail. He went straight 
north, trying to shake us off, and we got up into 
the barren country. We’d have lost him in the 
snow if it hadn’t been for that dog there. He could 
trail him through new snow. We run out of 
grub up there, and finally I gave out. Dick here 
pushed on alone and found the Injun wandering 
around snow-blind. He run onto some caribou 
about that time, too, and killed some. Then he 
came back and got me: — I had a little pemmican 
and boiled my moccasins. We had lots of meat, 
so we rested up a couple of weeks, and then came 
back.” 

That was all. These men had done a great thing, 
and thus simply they told it. And they only told 
that much of it because it was their duty; they 
must report to their chief. 

Galen Albret seemed for a moment to consider, as 
was his habit. 

“You have done well,” he pronounced at last. 
“My confidence in you was justified. The pay 
stands as agreed. In addition I place you in charge 


CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO 301 

of the post at Lost River, and you, Herron, in 
charge of the Mattagami Brigade.” 

The men flushed, deeply pleased, more than re- 
warded, not by the money nor the advancement, but 
by the unqualified satisfaction of their commander. 

They turned away. At this moment Virginia 
Albret, on some errand to her father, appeared 
outlined in slender youth against the doorway. On 
the instant she recognized them. 

“Why, Sam and Dick,” she said, “I am glad to 
see you. When did you get back.?” 

“Just back. Miss Virginia,” replied Sam. 

“That’s good. I hope you’ve had a successful 
trip.” 

“Yes,” answered Sam. The woodsman stood 
there a little awkwardly, wishing to be polite, not 
sure as to whether they should now go without fur- 
ther dismissal. 

“See, Miss Virginia,” hesitated Sam, to fill in the 
pause, “I have your handkerchief yet.” 

“I’m glad you kept it, Sam,” replied the young 
girl ; “and have you yours, Dick .?” 

And suddenly to Dick the contrast between this 
reality and that other came home with the vividness 


302 THE SILENT PLACES 

of a picture. He saw again the snow-swept plain^ 
the wavering shapes of illusion, the mock suns danc- 
ing in unholy revel. The colour of the North 
burned before his eyes; a madness of the North un- 
sealed his lips. 

“I used it to cover a dead girl’s face,” he replied, 
bluntly. 

The story had been as gray as a report of statis- 
tics, — so many places visited, so much time con- 
sumed. The men smoking cigars, lounging on 
cushioned seats in the tepid summer air, had listened 
to it unimpressed, as one listens to the reading of 
minutes of a gathering long past. This simple sen- 
tenced breathed into it life. The magnitude of the 
undertaking sprang up across the horizon of their 
comprehension. They saw between the mile-post 
markings of Sam Bolton’s dry statements of fact, 
glimpses of vague, mysterious, and terrible deeds, 
indistinct, wonderful. The two before them loomed 
big in the symbolism of the wide world of men’s 
endurance and determination and courage. 

The darkness swallowed them before the group 
on the veranda had caught its breath. In a mo- 
ment the voices about the cannon raised in greeting. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO 303 

A swift play of question and answer shot back and 
forth. “Out all the year?” “Where? Kabinika- 
gam? Oh, yes, east of Brunswick Lake.” “Good 
trip?” “That’s right.” “Glad of it.” Then the 
clamour rose, many beseeching, one refusing. The 
year was done. These men had done a mighty deed, 
and yet a few careless answers were all they had to 
tell of it. The group, satisfied, were begging 
another song. And so, in a moment, just as a 
year before, Dick’s rich, husky baritone raised 
in the words of the old melody. The circle was 
closed. 

There was an old darky, and his name was Uncle Ned, 

And he lived long ago, long ago ” 

The night hushed to silence. Even the wolves 
were still, and the giddes down at the Indian camp 
ceased their endless quarrelling. Dick’s voice had 
all the world to itself. The men on the Factory 
veranda smoked, the disks of their cigars dulling 
and glowing. Galen Albret, inscrutable, grim, 
'brooded his unguessable thoughts. Virginia, in 
the doorway, rested her head pensively against one 
arm outstretched against the lintel. 


304 THE SILENT PLACES 

*^For there s no more work for poor old Ned, 

He's gone where the good darkies go.” 

The song finished. There succeeded the great com- 
pliment of quiet. 

To Virginia it was given to speak the concluding 
word of this episode. She sighed, stretching out 
her arms. 

“ ‘The greatness of my people,’ ” she quoted 
softly. 


THE END 





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